THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes 


MEETING 48 


ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. IV 


The verbatim transcript of the 48th 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Red Lion Richland Hanford 


House, Richland, Washington, on July 19, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTING 

404/733-6070 
 

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C O N T E N T S 

July 19, 2007 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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VOTING PROCEDURES; CHAPMAN VALVE SEC 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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SC&A CONTRACT TASKS FOR FY08 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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HANFORD SEC 

DR. SAM GLOVER, NIOSH, OCAS 

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AGENCY UPDATES 

DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY 

136 

UPDATE ON STATUS OF ROCKY FLATS CASES 

DR. JAMES NETON, NIOSH, OCAS 

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REVIEWS OF SEC WRITE UPS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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BOARD WORKING TIME 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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FUTURE SCHEDULES 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 

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COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 248 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 


or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


-- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

BEACH, Josie 


Nuclear Chemical Operator 


Hanford Reservation 


Richland, Washington 


CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 

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LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 


MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D. 


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 


SCHOFIELD, Phillip 


Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 


Los Alamos, New Mexico 

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IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS 


ADKINS, LINDA M. 


ALLEN, ED 


ANDERSEN, WARREN G. 


ANDERSON, GARY, CLAIMANT 


BARKER, RICHARD 


BISTLINE, R.W., SC&A 


BRASWELL, CHET 


BREYER, LAURIE, NIOSH 


BRODACYZNSKI, RAYMOND, HANFORD 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC 


FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 


CARRICO, MARYANN, HANFORD SEC PETITIONER 


CARY, ANNETTE, TRI-CITY HERALD 


CHALER, LLOYD R., RETIRED 


CHANG, CHIA-CHIA, NIOSH 


COLEMAN, VERNA, RETIRED 


CONANT, JOSEPH 


COX, C. 


CROSS, DARLENE 


DALE, ELLEN K., HANFORD 


DEAN, DELORIS 


DENGATE, IVA 


DENGATE, RICHARD 


DOMINIA, KIRK, USW 


DUNCAN, DIXIE, CONG. HASTINGS 


EBY, KRISTIN, SEN. CANTWELL 


EDENS, BARBARA 


FAUST, LEO, CHEW & ASSOCS. 


FISHBACK, KATHLENE 


FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 


FLINT, SUSAN 


FORDHAM, EARL, DEPT. OF HEALTH 


FRENCH, COLLEEN, DOE RICHLAND 


GOSSEEN, RANDALL 


GOSSEEN, SHERRY, ZENITH ADMIN. 


GILBERT, BURTON, RETIRED 


GLOVER, SAM, NIOSH 


GOSSEEN, SHERRY, ZENITH ADMIN. 


GRIFFIN, SANDIE 


GUFFEY, KATHRYN M. 


HARTCORN, BETTY 


HINNEFELD, STU, NIOSH 

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HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


HOYT, ROSEMARY, HANFORD SEC PETITIONER 


HWANG, JON, ATL 


JAMES, CHRISTOPHER 


JAMES, WANDA 


JANOS, CHRIS A., LEGAL REP. 


JANOS, WANDA K., SPOUSE 


KEELS, FRED 


KIDDER, LORENE 


KIMPAN, KATE, ORAU 


KITE, MERLE A. 


LEDFORD, P.L., SEMI-RETIRED 


LEDFORD, T.C., RETIRED 


LEGGET, DONALD 


LISK, BARB. CONG. HASTINGS 


LONG, CHRISTY, DOL 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MARSH, PETE 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCDANIEL, ART 


MCDONALD, ELDEE 


MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAU TEAM 


MCKEEL, DAN, SINEW, VI NEWS 


MCKENZIE, ROGER 


MERRIL, BILL 


MILLS, PATRICIA D. 


MONTGOMERY, ROBERTA 


OGLESBEE, GAI, NAT’L NUCLEAR VICTIMS FOR JUSTICE 


OLSON, CAROL A. 


OSOWSKI, DEANNA 


ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 


ROWE, FRAN 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


SCHULTZ, DENISE 


SHATELL, CHARLES W. 


SIEKLE, DIANA 


SMITH, FRANKLIN 


SMITH, SANDRA J. 


SORENSEN, ADELE 


SORENSEN, JOEL 


SPLETT, GAIL, DOE 


STRUTHERS, DEBI, DOE 

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THORNTON, REBECCA, SEN. MURRAY 


TOMES, TOM, OCAS 


TRUDEAU, JULIE 


VALDEZ, GEORGE 


VENTURN, SUSAN, PROF. CASE MGMT. 


VLIEGER, FAYE 


WARE, D.C., RETIRED 


WENDLAND, JAMES A. 


ZACCHERO, MARY JO, ORAU TEAM 

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JULY 19, 2007
 

8:45 a.m.


 P R O C E E D I N G S 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS


 DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. I'm going 


to call the meeting to order. This is the 


third and final day of our Board meeting here 


in Hanford. Again, the usual reminder to 


register your attendance with us today in the 


foyer, if you haven't already done so. And 


having given that announcement I realize I 


haven't done that yet, but I'll do that and the 


rest of you should, also. 


We have had to change some of the order on the 


agenda today due to availability of people at 


various times. The agency updates will occur 


at 11:30 rather than right now, so you can 


switch that around. We're also moving the SC&A 


contract discussions forward and those will 


ensue shortly. 


VOTING PROCEDURES; CHAPMAN VALVE CONT’D
 

There is one fundamental issue that we need to 


address before we get into the regular agenda, 


and that's an issue that relates to our voting 


procedures. One -- one of the procedures that 


the Board had put in place very early was what 

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to do about votes for members who are absent 


when we have substantive issues, such as an 


SEC. We did have two members absent yesterday, 


one of whom was available by phone and was able 


to vote, one of whom was not available. And so 


we want to have the -- the Board's own rule on 


voting read, and Dr. Melius has been able to 


dig that out, so Jim if you'll read that to the 


Board and then we can dec-- determine how to 


proceed. And basically the issue -- the reason 


this will be-- becomes important is because we 


had a vote which was a very close one 


yesterday, it was a six to five vote, and 


there's one additional member who did not vote. 


And since it was a major issue, not a vote on 


something like whether to take a coffee break, 


the -- this procedure clearly comes into 


effect. So Jim, if you will read that for the 


Board and then we can determine how to proceed. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, for future reference for 


everybody, these -- these procedures were 


adopted by the Board in January, 2002 and they 


are on our web site under the ad-- on the 


Advisory Board page, I think -- towards the 


bottom there's a link to -- to a -- a short 

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document and that cover -- covers three issues, 


one of which is definition of a quorum, second 


of which is -- deals with the voting issue and 


I'll go into that in detail, and the other one 


has to do with subcommittees and -- and working 


groups, but -- and I'll read the full one that 


deals with voting. 


 The Board shall issue formal recommendations on 


specific matters to HHS/NIOSH only after a 


majority opinion has been reached through 


voting by elig-- eligible members. Eligible 


members are defined as those whom (a) have not 


been required to recuse themselves from 


participating in discussions regarding the 


issue at hand; (b) those who have not abstained 


from a specific vote; or (c) those who may not 


be available to participate in the given vote. 


All reasonable effort shall be made by 


NIOSH/OCAS to obtain the vote, parentheses, or 


notification of recusal or abs-- abstention 


from a vote, close parentheses, from any member 


that may not be able to -- to either be 


telephonically or physically present for that 


vote. 


So I -- I would understand that to mean that in 

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-- in this particular case that -- as I 


understand, Brad Clawson is not -- does -- not 


required to recuse himself on this vote and has 


not -- I think he has to be sort of polled as 


to whether he -- I mean he may decide to 


abstain, but -- that's his prerogative, or -- 


or we have to obtain his vote. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: And my understanding is that 


Brad's in a -- had a conflict with a training 


course --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- at the present time. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. The Chair agrees that this 

particular rule for the Board is in effect and 


that therefore it is incumbent upon us to -- to 


attempt to obtain the vote of Brad Clawson. 


The net result of that would be that until we 


get that vote, the action that we took on 


Chapman is in limbo, if that's a word I want to 


use. 


 DR. WADE: That's a good term, limbo. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It's -- it's not -- it's not 


completely closed. There -- there are two 


possibilities. If Brad votes for the motion, 

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then the action would stand. If Brad voted 


against the motion, we would have essentially a 


deadlock. It would be a six-six tie. That 


would mean, as -- as I would understand it, it 


would mean that we would not have a 


recommendation to make to the Secretary at this 


time because we -- it would not have reached 


closure one way or the other. It would 


essentially have the effect of keeping that 


action possibly open until we could break the 


tie in one way or another, whatever it would 


take -- either a revote or additional 


information or something. 


In fact now I'm going to ask Lew Wade again if 


he has any insight in terms of -- as far as 


recommendations to the Secretary. I don't 


think a tie vote gives us an option, unless we 


simply reported it. 


 DR. WADE: I agree. I mean I agree completely. 


I think if Brad was to vote to make it six-six, 


I think the Board would then at its next 


meeting have to take up this issue as it might 


choose to. It could be that the Board would 


be, you know, deadlocked on the issue and -- 


and in that case might want to write a letter 

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to the Secretary designating that. At this 


point I think that's premature, though. 


I would like to talk to the Board very briefly 


about securing Brad's vote. Paul and I have 


had an opportunity to do this several times 


when members have left a discussion partway 


through. I would propose that what we do is we 


get the transcript of the discussion, we 


provide the transcript to Brad to read. Paul 


and I have a discussion with Brad during which 


we attempt to solicit his action. Again, we 


can do it other ways, but I would off-- offer 


that as a starting point for a procedure 


forward. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And actually we did something 


similar to that on an earlier case. I --


 DR. WADE: We did. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'd have to go back and check it, 


but we did provide transcripts and then solicit 


a vote. I think it was in the case of Henry 


Anderson, who had been there for part of the 


meeting but not all and -- and -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I don't even recall what 


vote it was, but -- Jim and then Wanda. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, can -- can I suggest a -- a 


little bit more flexible procedure? 'Cause I ­

- I think there may be times when a member has 


been present for a considerable part of the 


discussions and then may leave for, you know, 


travel arrangements --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- or whatever --

 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) catch them on the 

way to the airport. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- in which case waiting for the 


transcript or whatever and -- and I think maybe 


what we should do is inquire initially do -- 


you know, what information do they think would 


be necessary to them for, you know, reaching a 


decision on -- on a thing and -- and then -- 


and it may very well be the transcript. I 


didn't want to say that that wouldn't be 


required. I think that -- that can certainly 


be helpful, but in some cases they may have 


been familiar -- and then there are other cases 


where -- I mean, again, person may not feel 


they -- they were -- had enough information or 


were involved enough in the discussion and so 


forth to be able to --

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 DR. WADE: Entirely possible. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- to -- to -- to reach a vote. 


just -- so I -- I think we need to provide some 


flexibility there, common sense. 


 DR. WADE: So -- so the first step then would 


be a telephone discussion between Brad, Paul 


and I --


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 DR. WADE: -- defining the situation and asking 


Brad's guidance as to what he would like -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- prior to a possible second 


telephone discussion where he would tell us his 


wishes. 


 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


 DR. WADE: That's fine. I would like on the 


record to say that before the Rocky Flats 


deliberations I discussed with the Board their 


sense of whether or not they would like people 


voting who were not part of the full 


discussion. And that was not a vote taken and 


I had the sense of the Board then in a certain 


way and now I have a clear sense of the Board 


and we'll -- we'll proceed this way and that's 


fine. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: If memory serves, we have had 


several votes in historic time that might have 


been affected by this particular circumstance. 


I can recall Roy DeHart having been out of the 


country and attempting to make communication 


and being unable to do so, and it seems to me 


that we had a vote at that time. I can't 


remember what it was. 


I also seem to remember Mr. Owens having been 


absent on a couple of occasions when we had a 


substantial vote, and once Dr. Andrade was 


gone, I believe. I -- I am not certain, but -- 


but my concern here is are we going to cause 


this to be made retroactively, and whether we 


are or are not -- even if we begin at this 


particular meeting to enforce this -- this 


policy that we established for ourselves, I'm 


assuming that Dr. Lockey will be granted the 


same status with respect to what transpires 


here today. 


I guess my bottom line question is, who's going 


-- is this beginning today, or are we going to 


cause this to be retroactive? If we were going 


to cause it to be retroactive, who has the 

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responsibility of researching where we were at 


various times in our history when these votes 


were taken, because we did not take votes in 


the past from people who were not there. We 


didn't seek them out. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, actually we have in several 


instances. And normally it's been cases where 


the vote was very close and -- and a vote one 


way or the other could have swung the decision. 


There've been a couple where it wouldn't have 


mattered that -- that we -- we -- we may not 


have been able to pursue or find the person 


readily. I think one was when Dr. DeHart was 


out of the country, but it was determined that 


regardless of how he voted it would not have 


changed the decision. So -- and we were having 


trouble making contact. 


But there have been several cases -- 


Mallinckrodt is one where we did actually hold 


the vote open to get the absentee vote, so I 


know that we have done it several times. 


 DR. WADE: And in Dr. DeHart's case, I 


specifically had a discussion with him where he 


communicated to me the fact that he couldn't 


participate and did not wish to vote, so I 

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I 

think we were consistent -- in my time we've 


never been inconsistent with this procedure. 


don't know beyond my time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: John? 


 DR. POSTON: Well, I basically had the same 


question that Ms. Munn had, is it going to be 


retroactive, because I was not contacted when 


we tabled the Chapman Valve report, even though 


I happen to be the chair of the working group. 


And subsequent votes and -- on the two meetings 


in Denver, no one contacted me to see if I 


parti-- wanted to vote. I tried to participate 


as much as I could by telephone, but I was 


never contacted. So I know rules is rules, 


but when are we going to -- how far back are we 


going to go and how fair are we going to be to 


the people that weren't contacted? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: I can speak to each of those if 


you'd like. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, go ahead. 


 DR. WADE: You know, I think, as Dr. Melius 


read it, a motion to table would not trigger us 


trying to poll members who weren't present. 


It's only a vote where a recommendation is 

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going to be made to the Secretary. 


Prior to the Rocky Flats vote -- 


 DR. POSTON: Is that what it says? 


 DR. WADE: -- I did ha--


 DR. POSTON: Excuse me, is that --


 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 


 DR. POSTON: -- what it says? 


 DR. MELIUS: It says Board shall issue formal 


recommendations on specific matters -- 


 DR. POSTON: Formal recommendations. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- to HHS -- so -- so it's only, 


you know, the bi-- the bigger votes and if I 


may, I mean -- and I think that, as Paul has 


said, whenever we have not followed the 


procedure that it's been where the vote would 


not have -- would not have mattered in -- in 


terms of what the rec-- recommendation is. It 


may be that we should try to do a better job 


going forward of polling people, though you 


know, frankly, if -- you know, I was told that, 


you know, the vote was eight to one and I 


wasn't present or whatever, I mean I don't 


think I'd want to hold up a -- you know, the 


action pending my, you know, reading the 

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transcript. I might tell Paul I just -- I 


would abstain in that instance. I mean it's a 


personal decision. Or I may say that no, I 


think I'm comfortable with what they did and 


I'd add my -- please add my vote to -- to the 


recommendation, I -- and I think we need to do 


a -- a better job of probably following through 


on that. But -- but it's only on -- on -- is ­

- was limited specifically to sort of the more 


formal votes that we take. 


 DR. POSTON: Has anybody looked at the record 


for the two meetings that were held in Denver 


to see if this was the case? 


 DR. WADE: Now on Rocky Flats I did have a 


discussion on the record. I'll have to -- I 


have to produce the record for you, and I asked 


the sense of the Board, if they wanted to have 


us try and get votes for people who did not 


participate fully in the discussion, and my 


sense was no and I proceeded according to that. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and -- and the votes on 


Rocky were -- it was the majority of all the 


Board members that were eligible who were 


voting whatever way. I mean it -- for example, 


I don't think your vote would have -- would 

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have -- not have changed the outcome, I guess. 


 DR. WADE: That's correct, in my opinion, as -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah, I agree, as I recall. 


 DR. WADE: I -- I agree we need to police this 


better, but I don't know of any egregious 


violations of it --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, and -- and actually -- and 


Board members may indeed want their vote to be 


on the record for --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- some of these, regardless of 


the outcome. 


 DR. POSTON: Yeah, I agree, but --


 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I think it is important that 


-- that we follow that procedure and -- and 


make sure that Board members do have that 


opportunity on -- particularly on 


recommendations to the Secretary so that their 


vote is at least on the record. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: And it would be very helpful if that 


effort, and the result of it, were made obvious 


to the other Board members. For example, I had 


no knowledge of previous communications with 

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respect to votes among people who were not 


here, so --


 DR. WADE: Okay, I take that as a task. Thank 


you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And in fact on the Rocky Flats 


things, we could go back -- I think it's been 


recent -- fairly recent and I -- John, you 


missed that meeting, and who else was missing? 


 DR. WADE: I think -- possibly Dr. Lockey, I 


don't recall. 


MS. BEACH: Mike was on the phone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mike was on the phone and voted. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Lockey was on the phone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think -- I think -- 


 DR. WADE: Might have been only John. 


 DR. POSTON: I was on the phone part of the 


time --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but you weren't there for 


the vote. 


 DR. POSTON: Well, the -- you know, I was told 


that the vote was going to be at a certain 


time, and I got on the telephone and it did not 


occur. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: We can -- we can record your vote if 

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you -- we can discuss it with -- 


 DR. POSTON: I was on travel and I -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Right. 


 DR. POSTON: -- took special -- I excused 


myself from the meeting -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. POSTON: -- and went to be on the phone and 


then the vote didn't occur. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Well, I -- I think in -- 


 DR. POSTON: And I was never contacted. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- in fairness, we -- we should 


take care of that loose end, as well, and that 


should be done. 


Is there any objection then -- to follow up on 


this, this doesn't require formal action, the 


policy exists -- to implement it that Lew and I 


would attempt to contact Brad Clawson, provide 


him with whatever information he needs to 


inform himself on the issues -- he was here 


previously for the discussion I think on 


Chapman, but there's been -- was additional 


information this time. We can provide him with 


transcripts if he so desires, and then record 


his vote. And depending on that vote, then we 


would proceed. Is there any -- any further 

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discussion on that? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, thank you. Well, let me -- let me add 


one other thing, and I think -- I think we will 


still have to have at the ready the -- the 


proposed motion, depending on his vote, so that 


if he votes for that that it would be ready to 


forward. So when -- when we come to the work 


time, we will still consider the wording of 


that motion, so -- and -- and Dr. Poston has 


that. 


SC&A CONTRACT TASKS FOR FY08
 

Okay, now we're going to proceed with 


consideration of the SC&A contract. Let me 


confirm that David Staudt is still on the line. 


 MR. STAUDT: I am, Dr. Ziemer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: David's our contracting officer. 


And Lew, if you would kick this off, then we'll 


get SC&A to participate as needed and -- 


 DR. WADE: I've given you --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the documents have been 


distributed? 


 DR. WADE: Well, yes, I put at your place a 


copy of an e-mail that I sent you a week ago 


just sort of summarizing the situation. And 

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let me just paint a broad picture of it. We're 


now going to go into another fiscal year with 


SC&A and we need to decide what contract tasks 


to have in place for that fiscal year. I go 


into the fiscal year with the expectation that 


$3.5 million is available to fund the SC&A 


contract. As I've always told you, that can 


change. If it does change, I'll let you know. 


With your instruction, David and I solicited 


proposals from SC&A for the normal tasks. And 


we've received their proposals, they've been 


shared with you. SC&A also provided a summary 


document. And then I sent you this e-mail just 


trying to lay out the issue that's in front of 


us. And if you'll bear with me, very quickly, 


on Task I -- which is the site profile reviews 


-- we asked for a proposal for six reviews. 


That's what we have been doing in terms of site 


profile reviews, and we have a proposal from 


SC&A for $1,316,000. 


With regard to Task III, that's procedures 


reviews, we asked for and received a proposal 


for 30 procedures reviews and one PER review. 


Remember, PER is the new beast that is a 


situation where NIOSH goes back and re­
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evaluates cases based upon changes that have 


been made in the science foundation, and we 


asked SC&A for one review -- the cost of one 


PER review, and that cost was $39,000. 


Task IV, which is the D-- dose reconstruction 


reviews, we asked for 60 and two blind reviews, 


and we received a proposal from SC&A of 


$729,000. 


Task V, which is the SEC support, we asked for 


three focused and three broad, and I have a 


proposal at a cost of $1,038,000. 


And then the project management task, which is 


outlined in detail for you in your package, at 


a cost of two nine five. 


If you add those together you come to a 


proposal total of $3,685,000. That's $185K 


over the amount that I believe we have 


available. 


So what I'd like to do is have a discussion 


with you as to what specifically we should task 


SC&A with going into next fiscal year, and this 


is really the meeting we need to do that in 


order to -- to meet the procurement guidelines 


that David works against. 


In my note I -- I offered you several thoughts. 

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One is that John and I agree that there's not 


likely to be 30 procedures to be reviewed, and 


we can talk about that. 


A site profile, by my arithmetic, costs us 


about $132,000. There are not a lot of site 


profile -- there are site profiles to be 


reviewed. We've done the major site profiles. 


We have a backlog of review of site profiles. 


It could be that common sense would be to -- to 


back off on that task some. 


To add to this calculus, yesterday you talked 


about asking SC&A to undertake a procedures 


review that would be grander than the typical 


procedures review, focusing on the use of data 


from other sites. It could well be, if that 


proposal is brought to SC&A, that could consume 


more resource than the typical 1/30th of their 


proposal on Task III. 


So we have a little bit of thinking to do in 


terms of how to proceed. I guess I'm 


suggesting that we do a little bit of 


prioritizing in terms of what we move forward. 


You might want to do that. You might want to 


do something else. And so I think that sets 


the stage. 

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The only other piece I guess -- and Mark is not 


with us at the moment -- is the results of the 


subcommittee deliberation in terms of what they 


would like to see done in terms of advanced 


reviews, basic reviews and blind reviews. 


So just to remind you of the status and then 


take your guidance as we move forward. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Well, actually on that last 


item, this -- the Board approved on Tuesday the 


-- the two blind review part of that. That was 


the recommendation, so that's in there, two -- 


but that is to start on this year's budget -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and we understand that may not 


be completed on this year's budget, so I think 


-- and I'm not sure how that works cost-wise. 


Do you carry the cost forward on that? Is that 


fully covered by this year's budget? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, it is. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So -- so the question then 


will come back for next year's budget, do -- 


and we probably are going to want to think 


about at least identifying money for additional 


ones. It's going to depend on the outcome of 


those initial blind reviews, but certainly we 

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want to think about setting aside money there. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, good. Well, perhaps we 


should -- well, let me ask -- David Staudt, do 


you have any additional comments here at the 


beginning? 


 MR. STAUDT: No, I think that covers it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Perhaps we 


should go through these a task at a time then, 


Lew. I think let's start with Task I. Task 


I's the site profile review. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, we're going to have John come 


to the microphone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then -- and also, Board 


members, you should have received -- I think 


all the Board members received copies of the 


SC&A proposals which were sent to David Staudt. 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Did we all receive that? 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So that -- that proposal outlined 


what SC&A is suggesting for the fiscal year. 


So do you want to give us a summary there, 


John? 


DR. MAURO: Well, on Task I, that's six site 

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profile reviews in accordance with the same 


procedures and outlines that have been approved 


in the past, and the budget is -- the cost per 


is based on previous experience and is 


basically a duplicate to what we did -- 


proposed last year, with some modest escalation 


in cost per work hour. So really there --


Task I is virtually identical in terms of the 


scope, approach and budget that we put forth 


last fiscal year. And the question of course 


becomes how many of those need to be done. 


Bear in mind, by the way, something that needs 


to be understood is that the other -- the -- we 


have to date performed or almost completely 


completed the performance of 21 site profile 


reviews up through fiscal year 2007. Many of 


them have been closed. We finished -- closed 


out the closeout process, but many of them have 


not. So bear in mind that we still have work 


to do on fiscal year -- but that should not 


affect this. I have budget that I've set aside 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, the clo-- the closeouts on 


the earlier ones are handled through the 


previous budgetary --

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DR. MAURO: Through the pre-- even though they 


will carry over, without a doubt, into next 


fiscal year, and I track that separately, so -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


DR. MAURO: It's important to just separate the 


two. This is new work that would have its own 


budget. It'd be tracked independently but 


there -- and there, but there is resources 


available that I've set aside that -- 


specifically to support the closeout process 


for fiscal year 2007 work, so it's important to 


keep that in mind. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We still have quite a few site 


profiles where we have not done closure as far 


as going through the issue resolution matrix. 


I don't know off the top of my head how many -- 


DR. MAURO: I could --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but --


DR. MAURO: If you need that, I have the 


information. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but I simply tell the Board 


that because, aside from the budgetary issue, 


we have a -- a time issue as far as the Board's 


time and contractor's time in terms of getting 


those jobs done. And I think, Lew, you were 

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suggesting that in a sense we're a little 


behind the curve on those and -- and if we -- 


if we do need to divert some funds for some of 


these other activities, maybe going from six to 


five might be a possibility. You're talking 


about, on average, about $200 -- well, maybe 


more like $300K per site profile? A little 


below that, $250? 


DR. MAURO: Well, I -- I think just take -- 


take -- take the dollar value for the six, 


divide by six --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, $1,300 divide by six, so 


about $200K, so -- and that would be enough to 


cover that --


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that differential that you 


referred to before. Let's open it for 


discussion. Comments, pro or con? The 


starting spot here is to approve this for six 


site profiles. I guess we need to get some 


feedback as to whether or not you want to keep 


it at that level or to -- one of the 


possibilities is to do five and -- and set 


aside money for the other activities. This can 


always be changed, even mid-year. I mean this 

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is just a -- a planning document. Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: I -- I guess my -- my question 


would be -- it's hard to separate Task I from 


Task V, which is the SEC support. And as we 


found with Rocky and the-- these kinds of 


reviews can be quite time-consuming and quite 


expensive. And we have some -- some 


potentially large SEC reviews coming up, 


Hanford I think being -- being one. I -- I --


 DR. ZIEMER: Savannah River. 


 DR. MELIUS: Nevada Test Site, Savannah River 


possibly, I mean -- so I mean there's some 


issues that -- there and I guess I -- they're 


hard to predict, but I -- I wonder if we're 


being realistic on Task V, and I guess I'd like 


to hear a little bit from John on how he made 


that estimate and -- and so forth, I -- again, 


probably can't predict it with much certainty, 


giv-- and as long as we have the flexibility to 


go back and forth but -- be helpful I think if 


we can start out with a realistic number in 


there, if possible. 


DR. MAURO: Perhaps I could help you out. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: I've been tracking very closely -- 

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we have a separate charge number for every 


separate Task V activity that we're involved 


in, and the -- it turns out that when I 


budgeted -- originally budgeted Task V work, I 


set aside 1,000 work hours for each SEC 


petition review. The actuals that are coming 


in range from about 500 to 6,000. The 6,000, 


as you know, is the Rocky Flats. So when I 


look at the big picture, the -- the -- the 


1,000 work hours per SEC seems to be 


reasonable, tractable, when you look at it in 


the aggregate. If we have several of them, 


they're going to end up coming in, on average, 


at that level -- except for the -- what I would 


call the un-- the circumstance that may arise 


when we -- it's very hard to predict -- that 


there would be another extended review such as 


Rocky Flats. When that starts to emerge, I 


would do the same thing as I did the last year, 


try to keep the Board apprised that we're 


moving into territory where the cost of a given 


SE-- SEC petition review is going to impact our 


ability to do additional -- and that is in fact 


what occurred last year. There are in fact 


three -- we have on the -- within our scope 

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three additional, as yet to be identified, SEC 


petition reviews that are part of the scope of 


Task V which we will not be able to do because 


we used those resources on the Rocky Flats. So 


yes --


 DR. ZIEMER: For -- for this year. 


DR. MAURO: For this year, that's what I -- not 


next year. So what I've done here in my cost 


proposal for next year is I basically assumed 


that we're not going to have something on that 


order occurring. I'm assuming that they are 


going to average out at around 1,000 work hours 


per SEC petition review. And the vulnerability 


that you just had mentioned is very real. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. Yeah, I mean -- I don't 


know -- well, I guess -- I was thinking of 


asking Larry and look in his crystal ball and 


guess how many SECs there'll be next year, but 


that's -- I'm not sure that's going to be 


possible to do. But I guess that would -- I 


would tend to go along with Paul's suggestion 


on the site profile and, you know, let's move 


some resources over to the SEC up front 'cause 


I also think the -- you know, the timing issues 


are important on the SECs and I'd almost rather 

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see -- make sure we have -- can move along on 


tho-- those rapidly. I -- I mean it's probably 


arbitrary and I don't know -- you know, don't 


feel strongly about it, but -- but I do think 


that -- that we need to get prepared and be 


able to say we're ready to handle some of these 


other large sites 'cause they -- I can -- 


looking forward at these, I can see where they 


can take a lot of thumb and effort. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, other comments? Lew? 


 DR. WADE: Well, it would seem to me a common 


sense approach, given the numbers, might be to 


reduce Task I to four and to take the 


additional monies that are freed up, less the ­

- the overage, and move it into Task V. 


Now again, once this happens and the year's 


ongoing, we can move money around. It's just a 


matter of agreeing to a reasonable starting 


point and I think that's certainly a reasonable 


starting point. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You're suggesting going from six 


to four rather than six to five? 


 DR. WADE: Right, and then I would take the 


money freed up there -- there's some of it we 


don't have because we -- we're over the $3.5, 

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and move the rest into a reasonable addition to 


propo-- to Task V support. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If we were to do that for planning 


purposes, John, we would simply take two-thirds 


of the numbers on our sheet here -- it's going 


to be -- you're doing it on a per unit cost 


right now. 


DR. MAURO: Per -- exactly, right. It's 


straightforward. The only aspect is this -- 


the fact that we came in at a little over the 


$3.5. We'd have to sort of subtract that out 


first, and that would be the resources 


available --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I understood --


DR. MAURO: -- and those resources would then 


be moved into Task V. 


 DR. WADE: I think that's an excellent path 


forward. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments on this? I want to 


make sure we get consensus. The proposal would 


be to -- to cut back on the budget for the -- 


for Task I, basically cutting it by a third, 


and moving those resources to the other area. 


Wanda. 


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sense, logical approach. I'm a little 


concerned as to what that's ultimately going to 


do to us this time next year with respect to 


outstanding site profiles, but we don't have 


the same latitude with the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think we heard John say 


that doesn't affect -- by outstanding, are you 


talking about ones that they've done that we've 


not --


 MS. MUNN: No, no --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, you're talking about ones that 


 MS. MUNN: -- ones that they didn't -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- have not been started -- 


 MS. MUNN: -- quite get done. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. Yeah, and that's -- I -- I -- 


we get back to this issue of priorities again. 


It's -- it's all -- the priorities are all on 


the same level, we just have more of a time 


crunch with SEC (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now -- now keep in mind if we 


completed four site profiles and suddenly said 


you know, we need another one done, this Board 


at any time can --

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 MS. MUNN: We can do that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- can move the funds back, if it 


wishes --


 DR. WADE: As long as there's money. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but --


 MS. MUNN: If it's there. 


 DR. WADE: And there usually is. Yeah, I think 


this doesn't limit us in any way. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other -- Mr. Presley. 


 MR. PRESLEY: My comment -- I have the same 


concern Wanda does, is that somehow we need to 


coordinate our site profile reviews with our 


SEC petitions coming up. I don't want to get 


down the road and somebody say well, we can't 


do this SEC petition because we haven't done a 


site profile. So we need to really be careful 


and coordinate what we do there. 


 DR. WADE: And at the next meeting of the Board 


we can start to look at selecting specific site 


profiles for review. All I need now is a sense 


of the number. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments? 


 (No responses) 


Is there any objection then in proposing that 


we approve this task for four reviews at a 

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budget that is two-thirds of the number shown 


here? Any objection? 


 MR. PRESLEY: No problem. 


 MS. MUNN: None here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's go on to Task II, 


that's procedural reviews. John? 


DR. MAURO: Yeah -- well, that's Task III. 


 DR. WADE: There is no Task II. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry, Task II is not in 


existence anymore -- Task III. 


DR. MAURO: Yes, as requested by the Board, we 


-- we've -- we priced out 30 procedure reviews 


and one PER as a unit cost so that you could 


get an idea of what we believe would be the 


cost per PER, and then a judgment could be made 


how many of those you may want. In our 


proposal we listed all the PERs that are 


active. Some of them were complex -- when I 


say complex, meaning that these were PERs where 


a large number of cases were redone because of 


the PER. The -- I guess the one that I would 


consi-- we identify that might be as a good 


example of one, there were a lot of cases 


redone, was -- I think it was thoracic 


lymphoma. That is, when that PER came out 

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there was a -- there -- a new strategy was used 


to reconstruct doses to thoracic lymph nodes in 


light of that change, and many cases were 


redone. So in effect, what we priced out would 


be reviewing a PER that had accompanying with 


it many cases that were needed to be reviewed 


and -- so part of our price is not only 


reviewing the PER, but also reviewing the cases 


that were redone. So it's -- so it's a little 


bit more expensive than you would say a typical 


procedure review. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now I'd like to ask you, or 


perhaps Lew -- and perhaps David Staudt, also ­

- with respect to the new review that we talked 


about, would that -- currently we have a number 


of subtasks under Task III. We -- we have five 


subtasks. Right? 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Or that's just for the -- that's 


just for the PERs, your subtasks that are in 


your proposal. I'm -- I'm looking at the 


proposal for --


DR. MAURO: Oh, tha-- oh, the elements that 


make up the process, and I guess you have in 


front of you --

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 DR. ZIEMER: No, I'm -- I'm sorry, the -- what 


-- what you're identifying as subtasks -- let 


me look at it here. I'm -- I'm really -- what 


I'm getting at is -- is -- is this a new 


subtask and --


 DR. WADE: I don't think --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- how do we handle it budgetari-- 


not a task, but a subtask. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, I think -- I think at this 


point -- and again, we don't -- I don't know 


what the Board's motion will be. I'm assuming 


this will be a procedure to be reviewed, but it 


will be quite large relative to the typical 


procedure. I think there's flexibility in this 


task because I'm not sure that the Board is 


going to task SC&A with 30 -- so I think 


there's some flexibility here. I think if you 


approve the task as funded, I think we have the 


ability to reasonably assume we could undertake 


what you ask us to do. But again, we'll see 


how the year plays out. 


DR. MAURO: The -- I think perhaps the subst-- 


this is the approach we would use; that is, the 


elements that would make up the work, as 


opposed to -- if we call them subtasks, perhaps 

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that's not the -- the correct nomenclature. 


This is the -- when we perform the work, these 


-- this is the scope of what we consider needs 


to be done in order to perform that work. 


Now of course this -- that's subject to 


discussion whether or not you concur that that 


-- those steps -- I think there were five steps 


involved in a PER that we -- we believe are the 


steps that need to be done to perform a PER 


review. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Yeah, actually what you 


call in your proposal subtasks are -- are under 


the PER only --


DR. MAURO: Under the PER only, yes. Yes, 


understand, and it's only -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I thought at first they were -- 


you were identifying subtasks under the main 


task, but it's under the PER, so that's -- 


that's fine. Really what I'm asking then is 


can -- do we just need to modify this so -- 


rather than a rollup for 30 procedures and one 


PER, we would change that a little bit and add 


this new --


 DR. WADE: I don't know that you need to do 


that. You can if you wish. I don't know how 

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big the new one will be until you discuss it. 


I have the flexibility contractually to cover 


it within this --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- proposal as you -- as you see it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So are you saying we can leave 


this descriptively the way it is -- 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and if necessary, the 


description could be changed and still is part 


of this --


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- task. 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Comments? 


Okay, Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: The contractor's been doing a very 


good job I think of keeping up with procedure 


reviews. We've -- we've -- they've really 


been, from our perspective on the workgroup, 


outstanding. I'm certainly confident that, 


unless we encounter some extreme situation, 


they're capable of performing this particular 


set of procedure reviews -- we don't know about 


the PER yet, but certainly the procedure 

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reviews, I would anticipate this to be a good 


expectation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Any other comments on this 

task? 

 (No responses) 

I take it then there's no objection to 


proceeding with this task at the level 


indicated here, with the understanding that -- 


that modifications can be made within the task 


to accom-- to accommodate the new review 


process that we're talking about. 


Okay, let's go on to Task IV, which are the 


dose reconstruction reviews. John? 


DR. MAURO: Yes. This again is fairly 


straightforward. This is the standard of 60 


DRs, dose reconstruction, reviews which can be 


-- and we've wri-- done this in a way to allow 


for whether they're advanced or basic, and -- 


and how that unfolds, so that has no bearing on 


the cost. That is, we are prepared to take -- 


take on advanced and basic as -- as the mix may 


realize itself. So we gave you the -- the 


price for 60 what we call audits. We also gave 


you, as you requested, a unit cost for an 


additional I believe set of 20 separately so 

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that you could see what the unit costs are for 


-- if you -- if you wanted to add more to start 


to get more behind us. And plus I gave a price 


for a single blind dose reconstruction, a unit 


cost for -- as you folks requested, and I 


described what that blind dose reconstruction 


scope approach would be, which would be 


virtually identical to the discussion we had 


the other day regarding that two-pronged 


approach, so -- so you have before you the cost 


information for doing 60 DR reviews of -- 


whether they're basic or advanced, and also I 


have provided the cost of a single -- really 


it's a unit cost of a single blind dose 


reconstruction. And so on that basis judgments 


could be made regar-- and -- and it's all 


scaleable, so if you decide you'd like more 


than one blind dose reconstruction, it -- you 


know, it would scale accordingly. Similarly 


with the -- with the audits, it would scale 


accordingly. 


So now I realize then if you folks decide that 


you would like more than one blind dose 


reconstruction, we're starting to move into a 


realm where we're going to exceed the $3.5 

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million. 


 DR. WADE: I think, John, unless I'm incorrect, 


I thought we had worked out with your budget 


people that -- that the cost of seven ninety-


two is 60 DRs plus two blinds. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, yeah, I have them broken out 


separately. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


DR. MAURO: The -- yeah, you -- you could add 


them together -- in the details of the cost 


break-- I did separate them so you would have 


an idea of what the unit cost is -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


DR. MAURO: -- for a blind, exactly. 


 DR. WADE: So you've got 60 plus two blinds in 


front of --


DR. MAURO: That -- that's correct, right. 


That's correct. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask Mark, do you have any 


comments in terms of the level of effort here 


on this particular task, since you're heading 


that subcommittee? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I -- I guess the only 


comment -- and John alluded to this -- was that 

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we had talked about sort of scaling up and 


getting, you know, to -- to get better progress 


toward our target of that 2.5 percent -- little 


bit of a moving target, but 2.5 percent of the 


overall claims, so I don't know if we -- and we 


are getting -- well, I should say SC&A is 


getting much more efficient at doing these 


reviews. I think the subcommittee is still 


catching up, but -- but I think the whole 


process is becoming more efficient, so I'm not 


sure if it -- it -- and we have more cases in 


the hopper, I believe, so I'm thinking it might 


be a good time to -- to scale up our efforts to 


maybe a -- maybe a hundred instead of 60, but I 


think that's --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me also ask you in that 


context, 'cause I know the subcommittee talked 


about the advanced review issue and perhaps 


some modifications on what you're calling 


advanced review; how does that impact on this? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I -- I talked with 


John, and John alluded to this, and I think -- 


you know, I'll defer to his judgment on this, 


but I had him look at those scope items from 


the -- the previ-- the original scope and -- 

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and he said that there's enough flexibility in 


the budget to absorb those -- those modif-- 


those additions to advanced ca-- you know, 


reviews if we --


DR. MAURO: Correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- chose to select certain ones 


for -- for that kind of advanced, yeah. 


DR. MAURO: When --


 MR. GRIFFON: So I think John's okay with it 


and --


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I'm okay with it, yeah. 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If we were to change this, for 


example, to 80 or 100, then you're talking 


about a substantial budgetary change on this 


item. I guess I would ask whether we would be 


more prudent to keep it at this level and look 


at it perhaps mid-year and see whether -- in 


terms of both resources and time, whether we 


can accommodate more even. I mean we -- we 


have a lot of backlog, not necessarily from -- 


their budget covers the resolution process from 


I guess carry-forwards; is that how you're 


doing it? 

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DR. MAURO: Ye-- yes, we're -- we're prepared 


to -- to do (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Board's time becomes somewhat of a 


limiting factor on this in terms of when we -- 


we're up to eight times three -- 200 -- 200 -- 


let's see --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we're up to -- yeah, eight ­

- eight times 20, 160 cases, but we've only 


reported to the Secretary on 30. 


DR. MAURO: That's correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So we have a backlog we need to 


address as a Board, so if we get too far -- get 


ahead of the headlights, we're going to have 


some problems I think, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That -- that's -- I guess the 


other thing to consider would be just what kind 


of cases are in the hopper -- you know, are 


available for our review, and I know the last 


couple of cycles when we asked for a list of 


best estimate cases, we -- we -- we do -- that 


narrows the pool --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- quite extensively and that's 


the ones of -- of greatest interest, so I -- 

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you know, I -- I gue-- I -- I could hear both 


sides of this argument, I -- I guess we could 


re-evaluate mid-year and -- you know, I'm -- 


I'm okay with that I think. 


 DR. WADE: I think that's reasonable. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: I have a suggestion, though. In 


clearing the backlog of closing -- the closeout 


process, we've been moving in increments of 20, 


and I mentioned this once before, we -- if we 


could move in increments of 30, that would sp-- 


see, it turns out moving a pulse of 30 through 


the system takes almost as mount -- same amount 


of time as moving a pulse of 20, and -- and we 


could really start to clear the backlog of 


closeout process a little more quickly that 


way, so that might be helpful. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think you can work that with the 


subcommittee and --


DR. MAURO: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and whatever they bring to us, 


and I also suggested to the subcommittee that I 


-- I would like to see them take a look at some 


rollups. We -- we've done these smaller sets 


and reported to the Secretary. But once we get 

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a -- a good number of cases, maybe at something 


like 100, take the first five sets of 20 and -- 


and do an overall rollup of that and -- and 


kind of see what patterns are there. That --


it's probably a little extra work for the 


subcommittee. I'm not sure it affects -- it'll 


affect you a little bit 'cause we'll need some 


support from Kathy and so on, but I -- I think 


we need to think about that, too, as -- as part 


of what we have to get done in terms of taking 


care of what we've already had. 


DR. MAURO: That -- that will not affect our 


budget. We are already geared up with the 


spreadsheet databases and we keep that 


populated as we build -- as we fill out those 


tables, we're effectively building a database 


so that when you folks pose questions to our 


database, say listen, could you please roll up 


in some sort, it's -- it's done very readily, 


so we're ready to do that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Wanda, did you have a 


comment on this? 


 MS. MUNN: A couple of things. The concept of 


a hundred reconstruction rollup is excellent, 


from my perspective. And memory of what -- of 

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the issues that are outstanding do not show any 


truly egregious pattern that I can recall. 


Most of the early DRs that we looked at have 


been identified as being, for the most part, 


fairly minor issues that were outstanding 


there, so hopefully we can do that. 


For my own simplistic arithmetic, I have a 


spreadsheet made out here of your various 


proposals, trying to make sure I'm keeping 


track. If we're talking about -- you -- what I 


have on my sheet is only a single blind DR, so 


we're talking about a cost factor -- instead of 


sixty-five nine, we're talking about a cost 


factor of a hundred and thirty-one eight for -- 


for what we're talking about doing next year. 


Right, Mark? John, right? 


DR. MAURO: I did lose track. We're talking 


about 60 --


 MS. MUNN: No, we're talking ab-- I was talking 


about just the blind DR only -- 


DR. MAURO: Two. 


 MS. MUNN: -- you gave us the cost for one. 


 DR. ZIEMER: They're proposing two. 


DR. MAURO: Two. 


 MS. MUNN: So we'd be doing a hundred and -- so 

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the cost would be --


DR. MAURO: Sixty plus two. 


 MS. MUNN: Right, $131,000. Right? 


DR. MAURO: Oh -- oh, the -- are you talking 


price or --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, I'm not talking numbers. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm looking at -- 


I'm looking at a different table. 


 MS. MUNN: I'm sorry, I'm not talking about 

numbers --

DR. MAURO: Okay. 

 MS. MUNN: -- I'm talking about money. 

DR. MAURO: Yes. 

 MS. MUNN: $131,000. 

DR. MAURO: I -- I'd have to check it. I 

couldn't say off the top of my -- but you're 


doing it the correct way. 


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


DR. MAURO: It's straightforward. 


 MS. MUNN: All right. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Any other comments or 


questions? 


 (No responses) 


Can we take it then that there is no objection 


to the proposed budget for Task IV, which would 

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be $792K, and it would, for now, remain at this 


level of 60 plus two? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, thank you. 


Task V is the support for the SEC reviews. 


DR. MAURO: Yes, we -- and as requested, we 


costed out six -- three broad, three focused. 


I'd like to point out that though you've made a 


distinction between focused versus broad, our 


experience is that is not a controlling factor 


in the cost. The controlling factor in the 


cost for an SEC review is more along the lines 


of whether we're talking about a major facility 


or an AWE. We're finding consistently that 


we're able to perform an SEC review of AWEs at 


half the price, on the order of 500 work hours, 


while the cost of a full, larger complex site 


certainly will be at the 1,000 work hours, and 


there's always the risk that it could expand 


into something substantially larger. But the 


price we have given you right here are for six 


SEC petition re-- support reviews, to support. 


And -- and it sounds to me, though, that we 


might be adding -- if I understand correctly -- 


some of the resources from Task I into that, 

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which would increase the number. Am I correct 


in understanding that we would submit a revised 


proposal to reflect the direction I'm receiving 


right now? Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Comments on this one? 

Wanda. No? 

 MS. MUNN: I'm sorry, that was left over from 


last time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm looking at the -- at the -- 


the money moved from the site profile reviews ­

- part of that goes to taking care of that 


excess, which was what -- 


 DR. WADE: A hundred and thirty-two. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- a hundred and thirty-two. 


 DR. WADE: No, I'm sorry, I -- I -- a hundred 


and eighty-five. If you do the numbers 


quickly, roughly it's $200K per site profile. 


If we back off on two of them, that's $400K; 


$185K goes to the hole. That leaves $215-odd K 


that will be added into the Task V proposal. 


John, I would add it into the unit costs of -- 


of what you're doing as opposed to add another 


review, although that's up to you. If you'd 


rather add another review, that's fine, as 


well. 

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DR. MAURO: I guess I'm not following -- right 


-- right now the cost proposal raises a certain 


-- I mean the -- a certain number of SEC and 


here's the price. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


DR. MAURO: Now in effect, what I'm hearing is 


well, there'll be a little bit more resources 


available; how many more can you do with those 


resources, so I --


 DR. WADE: Or -- or the resources might go into 


doing those six, with more hours associated 


with them. 


DR. MAURO: Ah, that -- yeah, that's -- we -- 


we could just put that in and make it -- I'm 


seeing nods -- to protect ourselves from these 


 DR. WADE: Sure. 


DR. MAURO: -- from the -- I understand. 


 DR. WADE: From the growing. 


DR. MAURO: I understand. Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're talking about roughly $250K? 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, $220, I would say. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it looks to me like -- like 


we have $438 left from when -- let me do the 


arithmetic -- I think $438 is what we are 

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moving out of Task I --


 DR. WADE: Okay, so then you're right, $250. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And minus the $185 excess leaves 


about two -- my numbers show $253 -- 


 DR. WADE: That's --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but roughly --


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So that would move into SEC 


support, and what you would do is perhaps have 


a more realistic number on the number of hours 


that it's going to take to do that work. It's 


perhaps skimped a little bit here. 


DR. MAURO: I -- I understand. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that agreeable? Any concerns 


or comments on that? 


 MS. MUNN: Sounds pretty good. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So the SEC support item would go 


up -- I think by $253 or whatever that works 


out to be exactly. 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Appears to be no 


objections. 


Task VI is simply project management. That's 


the -- the overall tracking and other -- 


DR. MAURO: That remains unchanged -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- management issues. 


DR. MAURO: -- from last year and -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that's --


DR. MAURO: -- we're coming in exactly on 


budget. I'm tracking the cost and it turns out 


we're coming in right where we planned -- 


'cause this fiscal year's close to completion. 


I track monthly and the -- the numbers are 


right on target. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now if -- if I've -- if I have 


this correct, this will come out to exactly 


thirty-five hundred --


DR. MAURO: By definition, because we're going 


to do it that way. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, we -- we have forced it 


back to --


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the lower figure. Lew, do we 


need a formal action on this? I think we may. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, that's fine. 


 DR. ZIEMER: May-- maybe a -- a motion to 


approve the proposed tasks and budgets, as -- 


as we have modified them. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I'll make the motion. 


 MR. GIBSON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Mr. Presley has moved, and 


seconded by Michael Gibson. Any further 


discussion? 


 (No responses) 


All in favor, aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 Opposed, no? 


 (No responses) 


 Gen Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Aye. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Now by the new procedures, I will 


not attempt to secure Brad Clawson's vote for 


this because it is not a recommendation -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: -- to the Secretary --


 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. 


 DR. WADE: -- is that correct? 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And no abstentions? The motion 


carries. 


 DR. MELIUS: Does the Secretary sign the con-- 


no. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Comment, Wanda? Or a question? 

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 MS. MUNN: As a comment, I must once more lodge 


my very strong objection on one item that has 


to do with our contractor. This Board selected 


our contractor to provide us with technical 


support, and they have done so admirably. It 


was certainly not the expectation of some of 


the members of this Board, including me, that 


two of the most well-known anti-nuclear 


activists in the United States today would be 


included on the payroll of our technical 


subcontractor. One of those individuals is 


highly qualified technically; the other is not. 


I have mentioned this before, and nothing came 


of it. I cannot help but say again, for our 


contractor to be paying -- by even the lowest 


possible standards -- over $50,000 a year to an 


individual who does not have technical 


qualifications, who has been purported to be 


necessary as a policy advisor and because of 


access to the Department of Energy's internal 


workings, is simply not an acceptable thing. 


We're squandering the taxpayers' money in doing 


this. The argument that his presence is 


necessary to achieve access to Department of 


Energy officials is absurd in the face of the 

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fact that one of the principals of our 


contractor certainly has adequate access to the 


Department of Energy. I have no argument with 


the work that our contractor has done. I have 


great argument with continuing this particular 


individual on their payroll. I think it is 


absolutely unconscionable for us to be agreeing 


that it's okay to continue to pay this 


individual when he is not a technical 


individual and is not adding to the technical 


information that we're asking from our 


contractor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Your comments 


are so noted. I don't know that this Board is 


in a position to directly address that. Maybe 


Lew can help us with that. Jim Melius, a 


comment? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Seems to be an annual rite, 


but -- of this, but I will go on the record as 


pointing out, as I have before, the valuable 


contributions of the individual in question to 


our work, most recently with the Hanford site 


profile review. He's been very helpful and 


provided significant information that was 


useful to -- and will be useful to our review 

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of that site profile and that site work, and I 


think -- I do not understand this continued 


personal attack on him. I think they're 


inappropriately -- to be made from this 


Advisory Board and -- in this manner. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: They continue to be made because the 


individual has expertise in journalism, 


particularly flamboyant journalism; is an 


excellent speaker, is an excellent crowd 


motivator, and has a good horticultural 


background. But he does not have the nuclear 


technology expertise that some of us expected 


from the individuals, and which I see in all 


the other individuals, on the SC&A payroll. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: What I will do is I'll review -- 


with transcript in hand, I'll sit with the 


contracting officer, discuss this issue, and if 


-- if he feels any action appropriate, he'll 


take it. But we'll let the Board know if we 


would take any action. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I would object to that, Lew. 


I mean this is an attack from -- personal 


attack on somebody from an individual on this 

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Board who apparently has some sort of grudge or 


some other personal dislike for him, and I 


don't think that warrants you taking any 


actions at all. If we want to take actions, I 


think it's something the Board should take up 


and delib-- deliberate. We've talked about 


this before. I don't think it's appropriate to 


-- to give any credence to this individual 


attack. 


 DR. WADE: Certainly before any action would be 


taken, we would discuss it with the Board. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mike, uh-huh. 


 MR. GIBSON: I'd just like to go on record 


also. The individual in question I have worked 


with in my previous experience as union officer 


for the last 20 years, and I've found that he 


has incredible knowledge of the history of the 


DOE sites and the whole process of the nuclear 


industry, and I've found him to be a extremely 


valuable resource. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments? I -- I'm 


reluctant to have us debating the merits of 


individuals, per se. I und-- I understand the 


-- the views of -- which are -- are, you know, 

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observations that folks have, which may depend 


on where they're -- they're coming from in 


their own experiences, but the bottom line is, 


we're -- we're going -- the product we're going 


to end up looking at is what our contractor 


gives us. We -- we've gotten good product. 


-- I -- I may not personally be in tune with 


every person they hire, I don't know every 


person they hire, but I think ultimately it's 


that bottom line that's important. I 


understand the objections. I also understand 


the other side of that. I -- I do know that 


that individual does have a very great 


knowledge of -- of the DOE sites. I have 


interacted with that individual myself when I 


worked with DOE, sometimes interacted with him 


in positive ways, sometimes not so positive. 


But I -- I will certainly offer that view that 


he -- he has, although not a technical 


background, has dug into the DOE issues enough 


to know at least what is going on. Sometimes, 


depending on where you're coming from, his view 


of those things may be biased, but I guess all 


of our views tend to be biased in one way or 


another anyway. But I -- I think the -- the 


I 
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objection is so noted in the record and that's 


-- I think we can leave it at that point. 


 DR. WADE: Before we move off the contracting 


issue -- and I hesitate to raise this in light 


of the previous discussion, but I -- I need to 


alert the Board that next year is the fifth 


year of the SC&A contract that was intended to 


be a five-year contract. I'll ask David Staudt 


to come before the Board at the next meeting 


and talk to the Board about a path forward for 


continuing the services that you've so ably 


made use of. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. I'm looking to 


see where we are. I notice we don't have a 


break in the morning. Is that an oversight? 


 DR. WADE: Quality judgment. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Quality judgment. 


 MS. MUNN: We should change that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm -- I'm wondering whether 


we should --


 DR. MELIUS: Under procedures, can we modify? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm wondering if we shouldn't take 


a 15-minute break so that we don't have to 


break in the middle of the Hanford discussion. 


 MS. MUNN: I think it would be nice. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Let's take about a 15-minute break 


and then we'll begin the Hanford discussion. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 9:50 a.m. 


to 10:15 a.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: If you'll take your seats we'll 

proceed. 

(Pause) 

HANFORD SEC 

We're about to resume our deliberations and we 


will be addressing the Rocky -- or Rocky, the ­

- the Hanford SEC petition. Before we get 


underway, I'll ask our Designated Federal 


Official to give us an update on who is 


eligible to be at the table for this. 


 DR. WADE: For Hanford we have two of our 


members who are conflicted, Ms. Munn and Ms. 


Beach, and they have stepped away from the 


table since we are in the process of dealing 


with the SEC petition for Hanford. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Before the presentation of 


the petition evaluation by NIOSH, I want to 


recognize individuals who are here representing 


various Congressional or Senate staff. Kristin 


Eby, representing Senator Cantwell's staff -- 


there's Kristin. Rebecca Thornton, 

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representing Senator Murray's staff; and Dixie 


Duncan, representing Congressman Hastings' 


staff. We welcome all of you. I understand, 


Kristin, that you have a statement from Senator 


Cantwell. We'd be pleased to have you present 


that now, if you wish. 


 DR. WADE: Is Gen Roessler on the line, just as 


a matter of record? 


DR. ROESSLER: I'm here, Lew. 


 DR. WADE: Good, Gen. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Gen. 


 MS. EBY: Is this already on? Oh, great. I 


just had a quick state-- well, not quick, but a 


statement from the Senator, and I apologize if 


I stammer. I just got the corrected version 


about 15 minutes before I got here, so... 


(Reading) Thank you, Chairman and members of 


the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 


Health, for the opportunity to submit testimony 


on recent findings from the NIOSH evaluation 


report. I also want to thank Dr. Melius and 


the Hanford working group for their hard work 


on this technical and complicated matter. 


 In its SEC-00057-1 report from May 15th, 2007, 


NIOSH determined that it cannot estimate 

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radiation dosages with sufficient accuracy for 


workers between October 1st, 1943 and August 


31st, 1946 at the Hanford site. This finding 


is consistent with the discovery from the June 


2005 Stanford Cohen & Associates report which 


raised concerns about the dosimetry data 


available for certain Hanford workers is 


insufficient and makes appropriate 


determination for worker compensation under the 


Energy Employees Occupational Illness and 


Compensation Program. In other words, workers 


who have been employed at the Hanford site 


between 1943 and 1946 time period should be 


given Special Exposure Cohort status because of 


their radiation exposure cannot be accurately 


calculated. 


According to the May 15th NIOSH evaluation 


report, the class of employees in the early 


years is comprised of employees who worked at 


the Department of Energy for more -- for at 


least 250 days, and its contractors and 


subcontractors working in the 300 fuel 


fabrication facilities, the 200 area petroleum 


separation facilities, and the 100-B, D and F 


reactor areas. 

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Too many Hanford workers and their families 


have waited years for the compensation they 


deserve. This recent decision is welcome news 


at the Hanford community in its critical stage 


in the ES-- in the SEC process. 


While NIOSH continues its evaluation of the 


post-1946 years of the Hanford SEC petition, it 


is imperative that all Hanford workers covered 


in the special cohort petition receive a full 


and fair review of their case. They deserve 


the compensa-- the comprehensive review without 


further delays. I look forward to the 


impending second evaluation report from NIOSH. 


 I have enjoyed working with the Board to move 


the Hanford SEC petition forward. I appreciate 


the Board's attention to resolving these 


compensation issues, and support the decision 


that benefits Hanford workers and their 


families. A variety of occupational illnesses 


have pla-- man-- have long plagued many workers 


and their families here at Hanford. These 


workers deserve Special Exposure Cohort 


designation. 


 America's nuclear workforce has a rich 


tradition in hard work and tremendous sacrifice 

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that has kept our country secure. There is no 


room for compromise when it comes to workers' 


health and safety. As you deliberate today, 


please keep in mind the time -- please keep in 


mind that time is of the essence, and these 


workers have a significant exposure to 


unmeasured neutrons deservers -- deserves quick 


action. We have a responsibility to step up 


and deliver. 


Thank you again for allowing me to submit 


testimony, and I look forward to the continued 


work of the Advisory Board on worker 


compensation issues at Hanford. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Kristin, and 


thank the Senator on our behalf, as well. 


Rebecca or Dixie, do either of you have 


statements that you wanted to have entered into 


the record? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) record (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Can you use the mike, please, 


'cause we... 


UNIDENTIFIED: Barbara Lisk gave the letter -- 


read that on Wednesday evening -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

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73

 UNIDENTIFIED: -- and we have copies back here 


with handouts. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, very good. Thank you very 


much. 


Okay, thank you. We will proceed with the 


presentation of the evaluation report, and Sam 


Glover is -- with NIOSH is going to make that 


presentation. Sam, welcome. 


 DR. GLOVER: Thanks, Paul. My name's Sam 


Glover. I'm a health physicist with the 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and 


Health, and I'm going to discuss the Special 


Exposure Cohort petition evaluation for 


Hanford. 


As LaVon Rutherford discussed the other day, we 


have divided this in two parts and this is Part 


One, and I'll describe that in detail. 


We had three Hanford -- I apologize -- three 


Hanford petitions have qualified for evaluation 


under the Special Exposure Cohort. These 


include SEC-57 (sic), which is all production 


workers, the 100 and 300 areas from '43 until 


September 1st, 1946, and all 200 area workers 


from December of '44 through September of '46. 


 SEC-57, which covers the time frame from 

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January 1st, 1942 through December 31st, 1990, 


and that covers all employees in all facilities 


in all areas of Hanford. 


A third petition, SEC-78, was approved and is ­

- consists of all roving maintenance carpenters 


and apprentice carpenters that worked in the 


100, 200, 300 and 400 areas of Hanford from 


April 25th, 1967 through February 1, 1971. 


These three petitions were merged into two -- 


in -- merged and then divided into two sections 


to allow -- as we discussed, this has been 


discussed with the Board previously, but the 


DuPont era represents a special period when 


DuPont, from this -- very beginning through 


September 1st, 1946 and is a definable cut 


point in the dosimetry records and practices. 


September 1, '46 through 1990 is a very -- so 


it's a well-split-out -- why -- I mean to just 


give you some background on why this split 


occurred and why this was set forth. 


 This presentation reports the conclusions of 


the evaluation report for Part One, and this 


was issued on September 1st -- I'm sorry, May 


15th, 2007, and the evaluation for Part Two 


will be issued in early September, 2007. 

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The petition basis provided information and 


affidavits in support of the belief that 


accurate dose reconstruction was not possible 


for Hanford workers -- basically that personal 


monitoring data -- gaps existed for several 


individuals during this time -- this time 


period. SEC-57 was qualified bas-- was 


qualified on this basis. SEC-50 was qualified 


based on the -- it was completely encompassed 


by petition 57. And then the third petition, 


SEC-78, will be discussed in the second half as 


it is outside this period that we're going to 


discuss today. 


 NIOSH evaluated the class as all employees in 


all facilities and areas of the Hanford Nuclear 


Reservation from January 1, 1942 through 


December 31st, 1946. 


I guess I do need to remember to click the 


slides. I turn the page, but if I don't click 


the slides, it doesn't help very much, so just 


briefly -- I'm not going to read through all 


the individual sources of information we did 


provide. And I did want to point out that the 


handouts have a lot of background information 


and what nuclides were present, what the -- how 

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the facilities were divided, the type of work 


that was done and so I'm not going to go over 


that so we can have enough time, particularly 


that the petitioners can -- can also speak at 


the end of my presentation. 


A number of Technical Basis Documents were 


available for the Hanford site, and those are 


provided. Technical Information Bulletins, 


including TIB-30, external coworker data, 


internal coworker data, fission and -- TIB-54, 


fission and activation products; also ORAU 


Procedure 60 and X-ray procedures were all 


considered as part of this evaluation. 


I did want to discuss that we have had a great 


deal of contact with former workers. We've 


really tried to come out -- we've had two 


separate outreach meetings that we've come out 


to Hanford to discuss the issues with former 


workers. To begin with, though, we have a 


number of site profile reviews that were 


conducted by SC&A. We had worker outreach 


meetings in -- with the building and 


construction trades in January 13th, 2004 and 


another on January 14th, 2004 with the metal 


trades. 

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Make sure I've... 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. GLOVER: What's -- the red button, pause 


it? There we go. 


We had the interviews with former workers and 


site experts, including one on April 22nd -- or 


-- yeah, April 22nd, 2004. Outreach concerning 


DuPont era workers which was conducted here in 


this room March 28th, 2007. Those transcripts 


are not yet available. They have to be cleared 


because there are personal identifier-- ing 


(sic) information. We have notes from 


interviews with 11 former radiation protection 


workers. 


A sec-- the second period was actually outside 


-- that was from 1950. We had another outreach 


meeting here in June that was cont-- for the 


second half of this petition report. 


Over 670 documents were identified and reviewed 


for relevance for this time frame. These 


including historical background, Hanford 


Engineering Works monthly reports, Health 


Instrument Section monthly reports, incident 


documentation, epidemiological sta-- studies, 

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and we also delved into the logbooks from the 


DOE. They worked very hard to retrieve 


logbooks from this era to -- also to provide us 


-- really try to make sure what information was 


available. 


 Certainly evaluated documentation and 


affidavits submitted by the petitioner, and 


also the Comprehensive Epidemiological Data 


Resource, also known as CEDR. 


 The Hanford Radiological Exposure database, 


also known as REX, was searched to see what 


available data was -- that we had access to. 


We also looked at -- there've been large 


compilations. Hanford has certainly a long 


history and a number of sources, Ron Kathren 


and a number of individuals have captured a 


great deal of information and -- and also 


interviews with former workers, some of them 


who are no longer with us. Part of that would 


be the Herbert M. Parker memorial. Those were 


also reviewed for relevance. 


To provide some idea of the number of cases 


that we're talking about -- and I was very 


impressed when I came out. We didn't have a 


large cohort, but we still had 25, 30 people 

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from the '44 to '46 time frame who came to 


provide information. We met the guy who 


started the metal fabrications facility who 


made fuel here, production people in the -- in 


the reactors during this time frame. So we 


actually had a good turnout of folks to provide 


a lot of information. 


There are 378 cases which meet this class 


definition. Dose reconstructions have been 


completed on 328 of those. Cases which contain 


internal dosimetry is 49, and I want to point 


out that internal dosimetry at Hanford was in 


its infancy. We'll discuss that at -- in more 


depth in the next slides. Cases which contain 


external dosimetry, 244. 


 Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews were 


also conducted, and these were evaluated. 


 Routine plutonium bioassay program was started 


in September of 1946 at Hanford, so therefore 


that data is not available for this time frame. 


While uranium was piloted in 1946, actual 


reliable results were not -- and this is a 


self-assessment of their program, that they 


were not reliable until 1948. Fission product 


urinalysis was also started in -- was started 

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in 1947, but also was not really considered 


reliable until '48. So essentially, internal 


dosimetry -- bioassay was not available during 


this time frame. 


Except they did conduct thyroid scans for 


workers in the canyons, so they do have iodine 


measurements. Whole body counting methods were 


not used until late 1950s. And while there is 


air sampling data, it's difficult to relate to 


worker exposure. 


 For external monitoring practices, dosimeters 


were assigned to all workers who entered 


controlled radiation areas. For photon, we're 


talking about pencil ionization chambers, so 


these were used for beta-gamma dose. They were 


issued in pairs because if these things read 


ho-- if they -- if they were discharged, they 


would read high, so they were issued in pairs 


and I'll actually show some examples of -- of 


this -- of the measurements and practices. So 


they would issue these things in pairs. They 


were read daily and recorded to meet dose 


limits. They were used beginning in 1943 at 


the fuel fabrication operations, and when the 


use of film badges became -- started, the -- 

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that became the dose of record and the PICs 


were no longer -- but they were still used and 


I believe, as Jack Fix and others have pointed 


out, they're still used today in operations to 


control dose on a daily limit. 


 The film dosimeter was a two-element dosimeter 


design which began in October, 1944. It had a 


great deal of difficulty distinguishing between 


beta and low-energy photons. Weekly results 


were recorded in individual cards. 


 For neutron data they be-- they used this -- 


this pencil ionization chambers with boron-10 


liners, and that became -- began use in 1944. 


However, I want to point out that there is no 


measured neutron dose at Hanford until 1950, so 


they recorded no positive neutron dose using 


this equipment. 


So 1944 -- this -- as I said, in this -- the -- 


the second set of slides, it talks about how 


many people were at Hanford and construction 


workers, and so there's a lot of other details 


in the other material. But we had 3,495 


workers that were monitored. We had 1,499 


positive photon results. For any year we had 


no neutron results. For positive non­
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penetrating we had 292 -- and I won't belabor 


it, you can see the graph, but you can see 


there were a number of positive reads from the 


pencil dosimetry. 


From this -- and I hope it's -- it's clear from 


-- on your reports, but just to give you an 


idea of the magnitude and that they were 


tracking by area, even in the multi­

(unintelligible) -- this is 1946 -- to show you 


the different reactor areas, how many pencils 


were being read. This -- I'll hesitate to use 


a laser, but actually shows you how many 


readings betw-- for a single dosimeter read 


between 100 and 200 millirem, but when a second 


dosimeter, how many that actually were in a 


paired result were actually positive, so it 


actually kind of gives you a feel for that 


second -- the -- the opportunity for failure of 


that dosimeter and why this practice was used 


and that there was supporting information, but 


-- so they recorded defective film, insensitive 


reads -- so there was a lot of other 


information. So actually during this time 


frame we had the film badge results, so... 


 For occupational medical X-rays, they did 

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receive routine X-rays. NIOSH has procedures 


and records available to evaluate this dose. 


Environmental dose, we believe that the records 


and models exist to evaluate these early 


exposures for environmental releases. 


 For unmonitored workers that -- we believe that 


for -- while most process workers were 


monitored, unmonitored worker dose from 


external sources may be estimated using 


coworker data. 


I'd like to discuss now some of the petition -- 


or the -- the areas identified by the 


petitioners. One of these includes the missing 


Hanford DuPont area dosimetry results. You see 


from the previous slides we do have external 


dosimetry results on a number of individuals 


during this time frame. This is the time when 


people -- during the DuPont era in 194-- 


September of '46 they left. The concern was is 


that no individual Hanford DuPont worker 


records were in existence because they've all 


been destroyed. We reviewed these claims and, 


as I said, we found that a number of them had 


external dose data. We did find, however, that 


workers who left with DuPont may have had their 

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work -- their records moved with them. Workers 


who later went to the Savannah River Site, 


we've actually found their Hanford employee 


records in those sites. I did want to point 


out that these records were the basis for the 


AEC Health and Mortality Study, and so there is 


some -- there certainly was some moving of the 


records off the site. 


A second point was that methods used to 


estimate releases were not claimant favorable. 


This concern was associated with the computer 


program RATCHET has a tendency to 


underestimate, that it was unsuitable for 


modeling Hanford emissions. The bulk of 


Hanford releases are episodic in that they 


resulted from batch processes, and therefore 


they're -- we believe that they're well-modeled 


using annual averages. RATCHET was developed 


to account for these episodic nature of iodine 


releases from the Hanford reprocessing plants. 


Subsequent analysis has shown that when this 


additional uncertainty is appro-- is 


appropriately accounted for, these results 


compare favorably with the results looking at 


the hourly -- at the hourly release data. 

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The third topic was the under-recording of 


neutron dose, that neutrons were under-recorded 


for plutonium workers during the period '50 to 


-- 1950 to '71 when the Hanford nuclear -- the 


NTA -- Part One, and this actually falls under 


the Part Two evaluation and so actually the 


entire neutron dosimetry, because it 


encompasses and splits the two period, will be 


fully developed in Part Two. 


 Feasibility of internal dose reconstruction -- 


based on the absence of bioassay data for this 


period from -- prior to September 1, 1946, 


NIOSH has concluded that internal dose 


reconstruction is not feasible, with the 


exception of those projects associated with the 


metal fabrica-- metal -- I'm sorry, uranium 


fuel fabrication areas, which -- typical atomic 


weapons employer approaches can be used for 


that. 


This of course means that a health endangerment 


determination is required. 


We believe that for external photon dose that 


the records are extensive and sufficient to 


conduct external dose reconstruction during 


this time period for photon dose. As I said, 

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neutron dose will be discussed in the second 


phase. 


So the standard graph that we have, we say that 


we can do uranium and ambient environmental for 


internal, but cannot do plutonium or fission 


product dose reconstruction. 


For external, we believe that gamma-beta, 


ambient environmental and occupational medical 


X-ray can be done, but that neutron dosimetry 


will be evaluated in the second part. 


And I will read our suggested or recommended 


class definition include all employees of the 


DOE or DOE contractors or subcontractors who 


would -- who were monitored, or should have 


been monitored, for internal radiological 


exposures while working at the Hanford Envir-- 


Engineer Works in the 300 area fuel fabrication 


facilities from October 1, 1943 through August 


31st, 1946; the 200 area plutonium separation 


facilities from November 1, 1944 through August 


31st, 1946; or the 100 B, D and F reactor areas 


from September 1, 1944 through August 31st, 


1946, and were employed for at least 250 


aggregated work days, either solely under their 


employment, or in combination with work days 

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within the parameters established for other SEC 


classes. 


I'd like to provide that additional information 


regarding this evaluation is available at the 


AB document review Hanford folder on the X -- 


on your all's -- I think it's your X drive or 


your O drive, I don't know for sure which -- 


which drive you guys access this at. So with 


that, I appreciate any questions you may have. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much, Sam. 


Let me open the floor for questions from the 


Board, if any. Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'm a little confused on 


this neutron issue because your -- I think -- 


maybe I didn't read your evaluation report 


carefully enough, but at least for your 


presentation, from what I did read, it appears 


that you're not really addressing the neutron 


issue or your ability to reconstruct neutron 


exposures in this particular evaluation? And I 


guess it's a little puzzling because that -- in 


terms of our deliberations and in terms of what 


we're -- we -- we have to do in terms of moving 


forward with this evaluation, it -- it affects 


the class definition and things like that, so 

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I'm -- guess I'm trying to understand what 


you're -- what you're proposing. 


 DR. GLOVER: I -- perhaps I should have made it 


more clear and I apologize. The -- the report 


that was issued mentioned that we could do 


neutron dose. Upon -- as we prepared this and 


put this together, we are -- it's -- it better 


encompassed looking through 1950 because it 


overlaps. What I wanted to make clear is -- is 


that the places where there are neutrons, 


there's also plutonium, and that we do not 


believe that this additional data, or the lack 


of it, would change the class definition that 


those workers who would be -- would be exposed 


to plutonium or internal dosimetry were also 


covered by the neutron issue and so that there 


-- that the overlap of those doesn't prohibit 


moving forward with the class. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. That -- that -- that's 


helpful, though it's still -- still problematic 


from our perspective because we also try to say 


what you can do as -- as part of our 


transmissions on -- on -- on these issues and 


it sort of leaves a hole there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I -- I think that's a -- a 

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good point, with the exception of the fact that 


the two in this case are -- unlike some other 


sites, they're not mutually exclusive. The 


only time you had the neutrons was when the 


plutonium --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- was present, which in itself 


qualifies them, therefore, for the Special 


Exposure Cohort. So I think it's a little 


different than some of the other cases. 


 DR. MELIUS: No, I -- I understand that part. 


That's why I said that that -- that -- that 


part was helpful. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But later on, if you -- if it were 


determined, let's say in your -- in the next 


stage of your evaluation, that the neutron 


workers themselves are eligible, let's say, for 


an SEC, in a sense it expands it into this, but 


-- but the SEC would already exist here anyway. 


Is that correct? 


 DR. GLOVER: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You -- you would -- you would have 

to be talking about a case where -- where there 


was a non-presumptive cancer -- 

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 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


 DR. GLOVER: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and you were trying to look at 


the external dose only -- I think -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- in which case the neutron 


question becomes important for the early group. 


 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right now, without the neutron 


evaluation -- I'm trying to think what would 


happen if they -- if someone were doing a non-


presumptive cancer. Maybe LaVon's going to 


answer that for the early group. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, for the early group -- 


we wanted to leave it open for neutrons, 


recognizing that -- be fully evaluated in the 


second, and our -- and our time frame for 


completion is that -- such that it would be -- 


you know, before the cases would actually be -- 


the non-presumptives would be returned from 


DOL, the second evaluation would be fully 


completed. And we felt like you could put 


NIOSH has -- at this time believes neutrons may 


be able to be reconstructed in your letter, and 


note that, but through the process it will be 

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fully evaluated in the second half. We didn't 


want to take it away from the non-presumptive 


cancers, the chance -- if we determined we 


could -- to be able to do that at this time. 


But we recognized that the class was not going 


to change. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Can -- can -- I don't know 


if Sam or -- who can -- Jim Neton can fill me 


in on this because -- just so it's clear to 


everybody, when we, you know, started work on 


the site profile review and the major issue for 


the site profile review was the neutron dose. 


This is over the larger -- larger time period 


that -- that's involved, and when we had our 


workgroup meeting was -- number of months ago, 


we were told by NIOSH that you were sort of 


going back and, you know, re-looking at that -- 


that whole issue. Can -- can -- I presume that 


-- that the re-look at that issue is then what 


is coming out in terms of Part Two? I mean and 


-- and -- and I think what would -- presume 


would come from that would be a revis-- also a 


revision of the site profile, at least for that 


-- that portion of it? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, that is correct --

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 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and actually there's meetings 


that have been held this week here with folks 


to further elucidate this issue on neutrons. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I think it's important for the -- 


for the audience to understand what we're doing 


here. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We're saying from NIOSH's 


perspective that we see a class that should be 


added because we can't reconstruct a specific 


component of the dose. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We're also saying that we reserve 


our -- our opinion, we have not expressed our 


opinion about neutrons for this class at this 


point. And why we're doing this is that we see 


a -- clearly a class that we would recommend to 


be added and we would like to proceed with -- 


with designating that class so that those 


claims can move forward through that process of 


eligibility for -- within a class. 


What that leaves us with is claims that are not 


eligible under that class definition. In our 

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experience in -- in administering these 


classes, we typically see 60 percent of the 


claims having one of the 22 listed presumptive 


cancers, leaving 40 percent having a non-


presumptive cancer which would require us to 


try -- to attempt to reconstruct all dose that 


we can reconstruct. There's going to be some 


dose, because we've added a class, we cannot 


reconstruct. And -- and so in the instance of 


this class where we have a non-presumptive 


cancer claim that is going to have to have a 


partial -- what we call a partial dose 


reconstruction, we hope to have this neutron 


thing resolved and -- and have the ability to 


either add that in or it will not be able to be 


reconstructed and it won't be included in a 


partial. I hope folks understand what's going 


on here. It's very -- I know very complex and 


it's ver-- very ambiguous to -- to a person 


who's not involved in this on a day-to-day 


basis. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but -- but am I right that 


you're -- in the evaluation report you imply 


that you're going to do neutron dose for this 


time period with neutron/photon ratios? 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: No, we're reserving that until -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Reserv-- okay, okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We're reserving that until we 


resolve this neutron issue -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- one way or the other. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. It's -- that's not clear 


from the evaluation report. It -- it's clearer 


from the presentation, but it may be my 


reading. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. Well, that -- that's -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, I'm just asking -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that's where we're at. That's 


our intent. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other questions, Board 


members? 


 DR. MELIUS: I would just ask -- I don't know 


if Arjun or John have anything to add, based on 


-- I mean from --


 DR. ZIEMER: Arjun? Oh, hang on -- 


 DR. MELIUS: -- where we -- where we stand. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I -- I'm glad of the 


clarification because the evaluation report 


explicitly says that neutron doses can be 

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reconstructed, but your presentation just now 


said you're reserving it, so there's been a 


change from the time you wrote -- I'm -- I'm 


just asking for clarification 'cause it was 


puzzling. So that would clear it up because 


that's what confused me a little bit is -- 


since there has been a change, then the -- I 


guess the ER would be revised. 


 DR. ZIEMER: John Mauro? 


DR. MAURO: One more nuance I had -- I heard 


mentioned that the plutonium aspect of 


exposures was captured within the class for the 


internal, and then you had mentioned -- and 


that would go along with the neutron issue but 


-- since the plutonium covers that person. In 


other words, you would capture that person 


because of plutonium. But I'm more concerned 


about individuals that may have worked at the 


reactors where they also received neut-- 


neutron exposures, not the plutonium exposures. 


 DR. GLOVER: Unfortunately, I disa-- they did 


receive pl-- the fuel ruptures and they 


monitored for plutonium airborne contamination 


at the reactors. 


DR. MAURO: Also. 

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 DR. GLOVER: Later they monitored people for 


urinalysis. The -- the reactors are covered 


under that, and also with fission products. 


DR. MAURO: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I want to clarify, in case 


there's any question on the point Arjun was 


just making. If you look in the ER report on 


page 44, the summary table states that neutron 


dose is -- is feasible to reconstruct. The 


analogous table presented in the slides 


basically says to be evaluated. So that's the 


difference I think that Arjun was pointing out, 


so in essence I think we probably should 


consider that -- do we consider that a -- a 


revision to the evaluation report? Am I 


interpreting that correctly -- 


 DR. GLOVER: I --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- 'cause those -- those two 


tables are different. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I actually -- Dr. Ziemer, we 


will issue -- it will be either -- we'll 


probably issue a supplement actually, a short 


supplement to that --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- and -- and, you know, like 

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Larry mentioned, that a lot of those things 


were coming up at the end. We wanted to make 


sure we had the opportunity to present this 


class to the Board at this meeting and we 


didn't -- we wanted to move forward, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Thank you. 


 DR. GLOVER: And it is cla-- you know, to be 


claimant favorable, to --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. GLOVER: -- try to give as much dose as 

possible. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, did you have an additional 

comment or question? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, ju-- just a -- off the 


neutrons for a second, you -- you mentioned in 


your presentation no bioassay data, but you do 


say you can reconstruct uranium internal doses. 


So I assume that the buildings listed are all 


plutonium-associated areas and that's why you 


designated the class that way, but what about 


the uranium, can you -- maybe I missed it in 


your presentation, but -- 


 DR. GLOVER: The 300 areas -- I apologize 


'cause that is in the second half of this. It 


describes what buildings and operations 

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occurred in the 300 areas. The metal 


fabrication -- or the fabrication -- fuel 


fabrication occurred in 300 areas, but also a 


great deal of research activities occurred 


there which included plutonium and other 


materials, so those areas -- there is overlap, 


so we would -- we're saying that we would be 


able to do the uranium dose for these other 


cancers --


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. GLOVER: -- but that they are covered in 


the 300 areas. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Covered within the class, all 


right, gotcha. So when -- yeah, and -- and in 


the mo-- in the actual recommendation it says 


were monitored or should have been monitored 


for internal radiological exposures. It seems 


to me that's a --


 DR. GLOVER: There was thyroid --


 MR. GRIFFON: Is that inconsistent with your -- 


I mean is that inconsistent -- 


 DR. GLOVER: There were iodine measurements. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- with were monitored or should 


have been -- I mean you're saying you can't do 


plutonium or fission products, but that's not 

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all internal radiological exposures. 


 DR. GLOVER: There were 30 or --


 MR. GRIFFON: You see what I'm saying? It's a 


 DR. GLOVER: If you remember, there's 30 cases 


that have bioassay data during this time frame 


when it was in its infancy. And so plutonium 


was an experimental bioassay procedure being -- 


that some of these people have in their records 


in this time frame, but it was, as I said, 


experimental, it was being worked out. And so 


they may have bioassay records in their data 


file, so that is left in there. There is some 


bioassay, but it's not really -- was -- it's 


not really considered valid data. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I -- I guess I'm not stating 


my question very accurately. What I'm asking 


is, it seems to be the wording in the motion -- 


or the wording in the recommendation seems to 


be inconsistent with your table, you know. If 


I were to write it from the table I would say 


were monitored or should have been monitored 


for internal exposures to plutonium or fission 


products in the following areas, because you 


say that you can do --

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100

 DR. ZIEMER: I think he's saying it doesn't 


matter which one they're monitored for -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: The fol--


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that they're still eligible. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's the same people, right. Is 


that what you're -- you're -- 


 DR. GLOVER: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay, I guess --


 DR. ZIEMER: Regardless of which nuclide they 


were monitored for, they would still be 


eligible. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, Dr. Ziemer, we could -- 


and the Board, we can actually revise that, if 


it makes it easier, in the supplement to say 


just the specific fission products and -- and 


plutonium, you know, that it doesn't matter -- 


what -- our position is the ca-- the class is 


not going to be affected by it either way -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so it's really the bottom 


line, yeah. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- but if it makes it easier 


for -- and the Board -- or if it sounds better 


to the Board, it doesn't matter. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I guess --

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 MR. GRIFFON: We're also worried about DOL's --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the question is DOL's 


interpretation. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually --


 DR. ZIEMER: I think it covers it either way, 


but --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. We've submitted the 


class definition to Department of Labor and 


went over it with them and they were 


comfortable with administering that class. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions, Board members? 


 (No responses) 


Do we have individuals representing the 


petitioners that -- that would wish to speak? 


 DR. WADE: There'll be a presentation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. This would be the time. 


 DR. WADE: We need to change out a computer, as 


I understand it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can -- can I ask one more 


question while --


 DR. ZIEMER: While he's getting ready, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. The -- early on in your 


presentation, Sam, you mentioned cases which 


meet the class definition, 378, and that -- 


that would -- that would be in those areas that 

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you -- you laid out? That'd be 378 workers 


within the --


 DR. GLOVER: It is essentially the entire 


Hanford site. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. But it -- but that 


would be they were monitored or should have 


been monitored for internal exposures, it would 


meet that part of the class? 


 DR. GLOVER: That's -- yes, that would -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. GLOVER: That's correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thank you. 


(Pause) 


All I was getting at there, Sam, is just -- 


just the question is were those 378 claims from 


the early time period or they were -- were they 


claims that met the specifics of monitored or 


should have been monitored for -- and I think 


you're saying yes. 


 DR. GLOVER: Yes, yes, we had actually -- when 


we -- that's -- and if you read it, I believe 


it says claims that we felt would fit within 


the class, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Just bear with us. We had a slight 

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103 

computer incompatibility and we're hooking up 


another computer so the petitioner can make a 


presentation. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) people who did 


a petition like the one Gai Oglesbee did and we 


give input to? 


 DR. WADE: Gen, are you still with us? 


DR. ROESSLER: Yes, I am. I think that's 


somebody else on the phone who was asking a 


question. 


 DR. WADE: That didn't come through. 


UNIDENTIFIED: When you're talking about the 


petitioners talking, were you talking about the 


one that Gai Oglesbee did and my organization 


give input and documents? 


 DR. ZIEMER: The petitioner's going to be 


making a presentation here shortly. We're just 


hooking up the computer, so stand by. 


(Pause) 


You'll need to use the microphone. It appears 


that we're almost ready to go here, so... 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Can -- you'll need to use the 


microphone, and then give us your name for the 

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record and then proceed. 


 MR. FOLLES: Thank you. Thank you. First I 


should introduce myself. I appreciate your 


patience. I'm Tom Folles, an attorney, and I 


want to explain very simply how I even got into 


being the petitioner for this group -- that's 


presently under consideration. I represented a 


large number of -- of persons in the downwinder 


litigation and after that had been going on for 


some time, why this law was passed for worker 


compensation and, not surprisingly, there was a 


number of downwinders in the litigation that 


were also workers. So after being advised of 


that, then there was a smaller group of those 


former workers that were DuPont workers -- that 


were DuPont workers. And consequently -- and 


incidentally, part of the regulations is that 


anyone that files a worker claim must be 


dismissed from the litigation, so all of those 


folks that were signatories on my petition for 


SEC status have all been dismissed and their 


claim is entirely just as a former worker. 


Now as part of our worker presentation and 


development, we would always go with a FOIA 


request for the full worker file. And the FOIA 

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office of the DOE kept coming back and saying 


we're sorry, we don't have anything at all on 


DuPont workers. And that -- that set us on a 


search, so to speak. 


 Now this first document is simply a historical 


document that I can show you -- downwind -- 


let's see if I can get that enlarged here. 


Maybe the next one enlarges -- yeah. Part of 


that historical document shows -- this is way 


back in the -- in the '50s when DuPont took all 


of its boxes, all of its records and loaded 


them in a train and sent them back to 


Wilmington. Now fortunately, the -- there was 


enough requests back by GE for operational 


records that they needed to borrow back from 


DuPont, so between the back and forth, why the 


AEC at that time and now DOE ended up with 


operational records for DuPont, with all of the 


power histories, et cetera, and as was -- 


already been explained by Dr. Glover, they -- 


there is records of the health instrument 


reports. There's other records -- the 


technical reports, so we have really the full 


background on the operation of DuPont, except 


for some inexplicable reason they -- any 

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records that relate to an individual DuPont 


worker are missing. 


We made -- there was -- had been some 


considerable efforts made to locate these 


records. I'll just briefly go through them. 


This is Shirley Geiderson*, she was task 


manager for the HEDR project. That's the 


Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction 


project -- which incidentally, a lot of the 


information on these worker records is based 


upon. And she received, as you can see, a 


reply back from the legal office of DuPont that 


states that the Hall of Records has informed me 


that the only surviving records are payroll 


records of employees working at the site. No 


dosimetry. All other records were either 


destroyed or turned over to AEC in the mid1970s. 


Then -- oh, this is just the typical response 


we would get from the FOIA office every time we 


wrote for a worker record who was a DuPont 


employee, that they would give us the standard 


answer that the -- and this was to the best of 


their knowledge, that all of those records were 


left -- all of those workers who left DuPont 

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and continued their employment with DuPont at 


the end of the contracting period were archived 


with DuPont and have sub-- been subsequently 


destroyed. You may wish to go to the Hagley 


Museum to see if they have anything. 


Well, we did go to the Hagley Museum. They 


don't have anything, either -- I'll kind of cut 


to the chase here. 


Then we get to the Pacific Northwest National 


Laboratories. Now as you probably are aware, 


PNL was the site scientific arm of the DOE for 


Hanford. They took care of all of the -- the 


testing, the record-keeping of dosimetry and 


did numerous studies in that regard. The --


but writing PNL, we were advised by them that, 


as we have discussed in the past, when DuPont 


left they took all their records with them. We 


have had no success in obtaining any of these 


records. 


Now this is probably something that most of you 


are aware of, but I want to just point this 


out, that the document history unequivocally 


establishes the points that have already been 


mentioned. And if it's ever challenged, the 


information's all here. 

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This is another -- this is a -- a legal 


assistant to the DuPont Corporation and she 


states at the end of her long affidavit all the 


places she's searched and she comes down to the 


conclusion I've conducted a review of the files 


stored at Hagley and -- and that review is -- 


is still ongoing. I have not located any 


documents at Hagley that are responsive to the 


subpoena of such-and-such date. 


 Well, this information really wasn't enough for 


NIOSH. They wanted more points checked, and 


the issue was raised is whether or not this 


dosimetry might be available in some of these 


epidemiological surveys that had been 


conducted. And there was a regular database 


maintained by the DOE, the acronym of CEDR, 


that contains reports on some of the studies 


they've made. It's similar to the REX 


database. And the last paragraph in all of 


these reports points out that -- maybe I've got 


a blowup on this, yes -- the research 


department of the Hanford Environmental Health 


Foundation has provided the demographic, job 


history and mortality data for this study. 


Then they go on to say the health physics 

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department of Pacific Northwest Laboratory 


provided external dosimetry and internal 


deposition data, and so on. 


Well, the PNL (unintelligible) has already 


adamantly set itself on record that they don't 


have any of the DuPont worker data, so 


obviously this study could not contain that 


data. This is likewise with another report for 


the same kind of study, same -- same ending 


paragraph. So again we have another 


epidemiological study that is not using the 


basic DuPont worker dosimetry. It doesn't 


exist anymore. 


Then we also checked with a -- the process that 


Battelle -- when I say Pacific Northwest 


Laboratory, that's run by the Battelle Company 


-- and the description of the process used to 


create the Hanford mortality study database, 


and it's quite exhaustive, as you might 


imagine, but when you go down to footnote 


number one at the bottom of that page, you see 


the statement -- these records -- she's 


referencing some records that were -- they were 


unable to obtain. These records belong to 


employees who left Hanford with DuPont when 

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General Electric replaced DuPont as the major 


contractor. Because DuPont had taken exposure 


records of these persons with them, a decision 


was made that these dose records were the 


responsibility of DuPont rather than the 


Hanford biological records program. So those 


records are not even a part of the 


epidemiological programs being run or financed 


by the DOE for Hanford. 


So then there's a series of interchanges from 


NIOSH to me concerning the fact that NIOSH 


wanted this situation about the so-called 


carryover records checked into. As might be 


expected, there was a number of DuPont workers 


that, when DuPont left effective September 1st, 


1946, they stayed on with GE. Now some of 


those records -- some of the dosimetry records 


that were developed for those workers during 


their DuPont tenure were carried over with 


these workers to the GE files and GE was an 


excellent work -- excellent I should say 


custodian of that type of record. So we do 


have those so-called carryover records. The 


question is, is there enough of them to support 


a conclusion of -- of the dose exposure for the 

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remaining -- for the -- for the DuPont workers 


that don't have any such carryover records. 


Can you extrapolate from what the carryover 


records provide back and provide -- and develop 


internal dose exposures for all the rest of 


them. 


Well, the answer to that is that the -- the 


records -- the record -- first of all, turn out 


to be quite limited. It's already been 


mentioned the contractor doing the work for 


NIOSH, ORAD (sic), believes that they had 49 


such carryover internal dosimetry records. 


They would be basically urinalysis records. 


And this is just a copy of the first report, 


dated March 1st, 1946, of how DuPont was going 


to conduct this urinalysis, and I think it's 


significant for this purpose. When you get 


into the report and the full measure of the 


report, you come down to the counting. And 


when we find in the counting that they used, 


they -- they simply counted the tracks on the 


plates and used that to develop an exposure. 


Why, that is the most rudimentary and primitive 


form of that kind of analysis of -- that they 


were making of the plutonium content in the 

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urine and has since been replaced by wet 


chemistry and several other technologies like 


alpha spectrometry, et cetera. And just wet 


chemistry alone has been found to be three 


times as effective as this so-called counting. 


So we -- we have a situation where the internal 


carryover records, or the carryover records of 


the internal exposure to DuPont workers are 


limited in number -- in fact, it was the 


opinion of NIOSH and the contractor that the 


percentage is too small to apply -- to 


extrapolate from to develop the internal 


exposure to the rest of the DuPont workers. 


And of course it's these DuPont workers that 


are the subject of this petition. 


In any event, we went further and got -- I 


asked for the -- and obtained from a Freedom of 


Information request, we always had to do this 


with Freedom of Information requests because 


that was the only proper legal procedure 


available to obtain this, and it -- and it 


avoided -- it avoided the situation where some 


separate group of private persons might get 


information from NIOSH that no one else would 


get, so the-- these records were available 

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through the FOIA request. And in response to 


the FOIA request I made for all of the records 


-- all of the carryover records of DuPont 


workers of internal exposure -- namely their 


urinalysis records -- I was -- I received the 


full set. You'll notice that at the top all of 


the actual names and -- and Social Security 


numbers are redacted, which is the correct 


procedure that you have to do that to avoid all 


sorts of problems, not the least of which is 


identity theft. 


In any event, the full set -- the full set they 


gave me -- now these -- these I may -- I may 


add, these are -- are summaries, really, 


created by PNL from the raw data records. By 


raw data records, I mean the slip of paper 


that's filled out by the chemist that has just 


finished analyzing -- or the radiochemist, I 


should say -- that has just finished analyzing 


the tracks on the plate that they got from the 


urinalysis. And those raw data records or 


slips are then consolidated on -- on -- for 


each individual by PNL and then, for this 


particular individual, this is what you get, 


this sort of a record. 

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And when you go through all of these, there's 


basically only 27 persons that they actually 


have these kind of records for. They have a 


great many more raw data records, but that's 


what supplies the -- the basis for these 


summaries. Now -- so we could find -- we were 


furnished only 27, which is even fewer amount 


than what was believed to be available of 49, 


but that's -- that's really irrelevant in the 


sense that if 49 is too few, then most 


certainly 27 is too few. 


Okay, these are just -- all right. Now that 


leaves -- I -- be-- before I leave that -- that 


particular subject, what we really have in the 


terms of internal dosimetry for the Hanford 


DuPont workers, and this includes the 


carryovers, is -- is information that was 


developed in the last six months of -- of 


DuPont's tenure. In fact, most of those 


records I just showed you are in the last three 


months and they're -- secondly, none of them 


show any exposure, which is understandable 


since the level of detection on the -- on the 


technology they were using to count the -- the 


-- the -- the amount of radionuclide discovered 

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is -- is so rudimary (sic) that -- as to give 


you an example, it's -- I've seen some that 


indicate that level of detection was up over 60 


and the modern level of detection normally 


used, and has been used for a number of years, 


is .05, so we have limited records on a brand-


new, untested procedure that -- that shows -- 


with the very poor detection and so the -- I 


think it's fairly clear that the records and 


the experts could well agree on why these 


carryover records do not support any -- any 


dosimetry for the DuPont workers. 


Now last but not least -- I'll quickly get 


through this 'cause I don't want to take any 


more time, we have a -- well, first of all, 


I'll get into this one here. The -- the issue 


came up as to why couldn't they take the source 


term of these various nuclides and use that 


source term as a way to at least create some 


generic exposures for the DuPont workers. And 


so to develop the source term they went to the 


original author of the -- of the -- all of the 


source term that Hanford created, a Mr. Heep, 


and he calculated the source term for four 


basic radionuclides that he felt were most 

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relevant -- excluding iodine, which of course 


was the biggest release of all, but -- and 


talking about internal exposure, the particles 


that get into the system and cause cancer, and 


these are -- most of these cancers in this case 


are not thyroid cancer anyway so we can leave 


out the iodine and -- as he did. He 


concentrated on plutonium, ruthenium-106, 


cerium-144 and strontium-90. And the way he 


did it, he had no measurement records for the 


stacks during DuPont's tenure. They had --


incidentally, they had tried to create some -- 


some measurement, stack measurement detection 


in the original days, but they gave up because 


they realized it was totally inefficient and 


incorrect (unintelligible) -- in fact, they 


just quit -- quit any further attempts in that 


score. 


But what he did, he went forward in time to the 


Purex and Redox plants and checked what they 


were -- what kind of release fractions they 


were developing for those four radionuclides 


that I mentioned. And they usually came up 


with a factor of -- oh, like for the 1.1 times 


ten to the minus seventh, or another 

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radionuclide would be something like four times 


ten to the minus seventh, and they were all -- 


they were all some factor for the four of them 


times ten to the minus seventh. Then he felt 


that the water scrubber that was subsequently 


put on after DuPont's tenure was 99 percent 


efficient. So what he did, he went ahead and 


then increased the -- the amount that was the 


release fraction from a number times ten to the 


minus seventh to ten to the minus five. He did 


that for all four radionuclides. And he did it 


-- the basic factor as he describes here, 


during this period no emission control 


equipment was in operation. The water 


scrubbers were assumed to be 99 percent 


efficient in removing ruthenium. Therefore a 


generic ruthenium factor of ten to the minus 


five was used. 


Now that's exactly the reasoning that was 


applied to all four of the radionuclides, and I 


-- I could show you every document that 


demonstrates that, but I won't -- I won't take 


the time, but they're all there and that's 


exactly the reasoning he used. 


 Well, then there was -- we come to a study -- 

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and again, I can just find documents. I have 


to depend on the experts to say what they mean. 


And so the -- the -- a stu-- a study which I 


regard as -- a very, very professionally done 


was done by a firm operated by Dr. John Till, 


who was formerly, as you know -- or you may 


know -- he was the chairman of the technical 


steering panel that monitored Battelle when it 


developed the HEDR, the Hanford Environmental 


Dose Reconstruction. And anyway, he made a 


study of the particle releases during the 


periods in question. And what he did, he took 


Heep's figure exactly, took every one of them 


and put them on his spreadsheet, except that he 


increased what he called -- from the 100 


increase that Heep had given, two magnitudes, 


he increased it to 150, to be extra-


conservative. 


There was also at the time this was going on, 


when Heep was doing his work, there was not 


only the technical steering panel which was 


composed of a number of academic and scientific 


experts, just like this Advisory Board, and 


they worked with Battelle step by step all 


through the development of HEDR. In addition 

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they had a -- Battelle had what you might call 


a private, non-public external peer review 


panel. And we have here one of the most 


important members of that panel, a man named -- 


and by the way, there was no holds barred when 


the panel made their comments. It was just 


strictly what they really felt, and no one was 


trying to be polite. But in any event, one of 


their important members by the name of Al 


Blaizewitz*, he went through a very involved 


study and he finally came up with the fact that 


since the generic release factors of the 


cerium, ruthenium and strontium were obtained 


at Redox and Purex plants -- Purex plants from 


the decontamination efficiency of 99.9, the 


translation of these fractions to B and D 


plants for the period of May '44 to May '48 


when there was no filtration equipment at those 


plants, require increasing the generic release 


factors by three orders of magnitude rather 


than two orders of magnitude. 


So in effect, we've got Heep and his efforts -- 


very skillfully done, I think, and wellintentioned. He came up with a correction 


factor -- for the period of time when these 

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stacks had no measurements and no filtrations, 


he came up with a correction factor of 100. 


Dr. Till came up with a correction factor of 


150. Mr. Blaizewitz came up with a correction 


factor of 1,000. And it would appear that this 


is a good example of the lack of the 


fundamental data that's really needed to 


reconstruct the dose for the DuPont Hanford 


workers. The data is not clear enough and 


there's not enough dependable, reliable 


information on which to make a -- a reasonably 


accurate determination -- there's just not 


enough data available to do that. And it did 


not have -- although they were able to compute 


filter efficiencies of all of these different 


systems in sequence -- see, they replaced the 


water scrubber with caustic scrubber, then they 


had charcoal remover, and then of course they 


had silver reactors, they had a number of 


things on which these efficiencies were 


developed that were not in existence at the 


time DuPont ran the place. And -- but there 


was no separate evaluation of the individual 


units except we did find something, and for 


some reason -- and I don't know how -- this was 

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121 

overlooked by my assistant and -- in helping me 


prepare this thing, and I'm nearly finished, 


gentlemen, is -- I think this is important, see 


if I can find it. There was a study made of 


the efficiency of the water-scrubber. Now 


you'll re-- you'll recall that in each case, 


Heep and Dr. Till and ultimately the 


contractor, all assumed that the efficiency was 


99 percent, which would give them the basis for 


-- at least as a starter, of using a two-


magnitude increase in the release fraction. 


This scrubber test, dated August 8th, 1948, 


stack contamination, by J. P. Martell*, it's a 


typical declassified historical document 


similar to the ones I've showed you, and this 


test went on to say --


 DR. WADE: Microphone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We can't hear you. Keep your 


microphone up, we can't hear you. 


 MR. FOLLES: I'm nearly -- if I can make this 

point --

 DR. ZIEMER: Microphone. 

 MR. FOLLES: Oh, excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse 

me, sir. 

This point -- this test went on to say that the 

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data indicated a collection efficiency under 96 


percent and probably under 90 percent, and 


superficial velocities up to one foot a second 


and water rates up to 200 gallons a minute, et 


cetera. While these tests were far from 


comprehensive, the results did indicate that 


this type of scrubber was not capable of a very 


high degree of particle removal, even at 


relatively low capacity. 


Now here we've got something that -- that is 


down to at least 96 and in some cases under 90, 


whereas Mr. Heep and the others had all assumed 


that it was 99. Now that seems like a small 


point, but it's just -- that seems like a small 


point, but I present it simply as an 


illustration of the ambiguity necessarily 


involved in try to -- trying to reconstruct 


these DuPont internal doses. 


And I do have one other item I want to mention. 


The -- there was a AEC health and mortality 


study, and -- and it was prepared by Kirkland, 


and there was some suggestion that the -- that 


this study might contain some good Hanford 


DuPont dosimetry. Well, when you -- when you 


look at it and you go through it all, you -- 

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you come to the point where they describe the 


data on which the study was made. And I wanted 


to check this out because it had been left 


dangling in the -- in the rewor-- in the review 


report. There's a 194-page report, but when 


you -- when you check the study out, you find 


that when they talk about the data that it's 


based on, they get into -- the first item it's 


based on is personal exposure data for DuPont 


employees for the period 1944 through 1946 who 


subsequently transferred to General Electric. 


In other words, they don't have any of the 


other original DuPont data. They again have 


got just the carryover data, and we already 


know how unreliable that carryover data is. 


 And that basically wraps up the -- the -- the 


central thrust of the points that I'm making as 


a petitioner in support of the petition and if 


-- which -- which is -- concerns only the 


internal exposures, but without an adequate way 


to develop internal exposures we can't develop 


a good basis -- reconstruction for doses that 


would support a finding for cancer. Thank you 


very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Did the 

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petitioners have additional individuals here 


that you wish to have address the group or -- 


 MR. FOLLES: Excuse me, sir? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Did you have additional people 


from your petition that you wanted to -- 


 MR. FOLLES: No -- no, I --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- make -- okay, thank you. 

 MR. FOLLES: -- I'm the --

 DR. ZIEMER: You're it, okay. 

 MR. FOLLES: -- only one that --

 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. 

 MR. FOLLES: -- prepared this petition, 

although I did have -- I think there was ten -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, I just wondered if you had 


others here to speak, but you do not. 


 MR. FOLLES: Ten of my clients gave me the okay 


to go ahead and --


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. 


 MR. FOLLES: -- present this petition. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, Board members, 


this -- this petition now is open for 


discussion or questions -- yes? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think that's permissible. It's 

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basically up to the main petitioner, but I 


think he would allow that, so please proceed. 


(Pause) 


 MS. HOYT: I -- I have a -- my name is Rosemary 


Hoyt and I am a petitioner. My petition is 


SEC-00057. It covered the period from 1942 to 


1990 and therefore I question that Mr. Folles 


is the primary petitioner and do not understand 


the Board's saying so. Can you explain that? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually she is correct. Her 


petition is the primary petition. Mr. Folles's 


petition is the petition that only covered the 


early years. Her petition is the more 


encompassing petition that covers all years, so 


she definitely has the authority, I would 


think, to speak in this... 


 MS. HOYT: Thank you. One of the points that I 


would like to mention is that it was brought up 


the first day that we were here that we had 


been notified that the petition had been split, 


and then the Board members looked at my sister 


and I and we shook our heads. It was then 


clarified that we had been notified in a 


meeting. Each time that NIOSH did anything 


previous to that, we were notified in a letter 

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delivered by FedEx. Every time a petition was 


merged, we were notified in writing. So it was 


rather shocking to find out then that the 


petition had been split by going and learning 


about this at a meeting. I think that that was 


an improper thing to do. 


 Another concern that I have is the time frame. 


I believe that NIOSH took the easy way out and 


decided to do just the DuPont worker time frame 


instead of doing the more comprehensive through 


1948 or through 1950, as some of the evidence 


suggests. And I am very disappointed that 


NIOSH chose to do that and that the Board has 


allowed them to do that. 


 The other concern that I'm making is the time 


frame of 180 days. Since it was split, the 


time frame should have applied to each part of 


the petition for a total of 180 days that they 


were working on it concurrently. Now it 


appears that 180 days is for 1943 or 1942 to 


1945 and an additional 180 days is going to be 


allotted for the second half of the petition, 


which covers a huge amount of time, and I don't 


think that that is at all fair or timely, and I 


don't understand why the Board is not calling 

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for accountability on this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. The -- the 


remainder of the evaluation I believe is 


scheduled to come to the Board in September, 


and -- and that's -- that's what the Board has 


to work with so that's... 


 MS. HOYT: I would like to also make the point 


that -- and I don't have a PowerPoint for this 


or specific documents to cite, but in reviewing 


all of our cases and numerous cases for people 


-- from people that came to us, we believe that 


REX and RATCHET are seriously flawed. As Mr. 


Folles stated, they contain summary data and 


some of it is very raw summary data. He showed 


a PowerPoint slide where it's -- was stamped 


best available copy. Going through this, there 


were thousands of pages that were stamped best 


available copy. 


We also called Mr. Steve Baker, I believe his 


name -- Baker or Barker. He works out at PNNL 


and he said that the microfiche is unreadable 


for 1955 and that there are thousands of 


copies, he agreed with us, where it said best 


available copy. And so not only are you 


working with limited monitoring, there's faulty 

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computer systems and the computer systems 


contain -- or were based on documents that were 


unreadable. 


And again I would like to stress the time frame 


and ask that this review be carried on 


expeditiously. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


 MS. HOYT: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments on behalf of 


the petitioners? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. Board members, this -- what we have is 


the evaluation report. It's -- that we need to 


take action on. Do you have questions or 


comments or discussion? Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'd just like to follow up 


on this question -- I'm still a little bit 


concerned about this neutron issue and -- and 


again I think -- I'm not sure it was fully 


answered before, but the questions are there 


other workers on this site that were -- might 


not fall into the -- the current definition and 


why -- why was the current definition -- why 


not just monitored or should have been 


monitored for radiological exposures. Wouldn't 

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that be -- what difference would that make, and 


it would... 


 DR. GLOVER: I believe we were trying to say 


that photon dose -- that we would estimate that 


for non-presumptives, so we were -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 DR. GLOVER: -- trying --

 DR. MELIUS: Okay, I see what you're saying. 

 MR. GRIFFON: But why not -- why are -- why -- 

I guess, to add onto your question, Jim -- why 


-- I guess I -- I'm concerned and I -- I don't 


know -- is -- I'd have to look at this closer 


for Hanford, but are there non-plutonium areas 


where there could have been potentials for 


neutron exposures, for instance? I mean are --


you know, outside of these -- so you're 


defining buildings, and I'm a little uneasy on 


-- on, you know, limiting it to that building. 


Could it -- you know, is it better to just say 


the Hanford site where there was moni-- where 


they were monitored or should have been 


monitored for internal exposures? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: If -- I -- I apologize --


 MR. GRIFFON: You know. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- in this other presentation, 

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the 100, 200 and 300 are the areas. These are 


very large geographical constructs that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That covers everything. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- that -- hundreds of 


buildings each --


 MR. GRIFFON: So that covers --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- it is --


 MR. GRIFFON: So it's --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- an entire area, yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So it's the same thing as saying 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: The Hanford site. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the Hanford site. So why --


okay. So I wa-- I just wasn't sure that 


covered all areas or if there were -- it covers 


all areas, you're saying, all workers. 


 DR. ZIEMER: For that entire --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's -- to my -- yeah, the 


one -- those were all the radiological 


operations at Hanford, the 100, 200 and 300 


areas. I can't off-- you know, just off the 


top -- off the cuff remember if there was some 


ancillary facility somewhere, but that's where 


all the radiological exposures would have been 


-- would have occurred. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, that -- that's helpful, 


appreciate it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments or questions? 


 (No responses) 


It -- it would be in order to have a motion in 


reaction to this petition evaluation report. 


Dr. Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'd like to offer a -- a 


motion, I guess with my own friendly amendment, 


I guess -- our usual style. I think I've 


composed a letter I think we -- let me read it. 


I think we can hopefully, maybe over lunchtime, 


get it printed out and everyone can -- can take 


a closer look. 


 The Board recommends that the following letter 


be transmitted to the Secretary of Health and 


Human Services within 21 days. Should the 


Chair become aware of any issue that in his 


judgment would preclude the transmittal of this 


letter within that time period, the Board 


requests that he promptly informs the Board of 


the delay and the reasons for this delay, and 


that he immediately works with NIOSH to 


schedule an emergency meeting of the Board to 

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discuss this issue. 


The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 


Health, parentheses, the Board, close 


parentheses, has evaluated SEC petition 00057-1 


concerning workers at the Hanford Nuclear 


Reservation under statutory requirements 


established by EEOICPA and incorporated into 42 


CFR Section 83.13. The Board respectfully 


recommends Special Exposure Cohort status be 


accorded to all employees of the Department of 


Energy, predecessor agencies and DOE 


contractors and subcontractors who were 


monitored, or should have been monitored, for 


internal radiological exposures while working 


at the Hanford Engineer Works in the 300 area 


fuel fabrication facility from October 1st, 


1943 through August 31st, 1946; the 200 area 


plutonium separation facilities from November 


1st, 1944 through August 31st, 1946; or the 


100-B, D and F reactor areas for September 1, 


1944 through August 31st, 1946 and who were 


employed for at least 250 aggregated work days 


either solely under their employment or in 


combination with work days within the 


parameters established for other SEC classes, 

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parentheses, excluding aggregate work day 


requirements, close parentheses. 


 The Board notes that although NIOSH found that 


they were unable to completely reconstruct 


radiation doses for these employees, NIOSH 


believes that they are able to reconstruct 


components of the internal dose other than 


plutonium and fission products, close 


parentheses, and all external doses with the 


possible exception of neutron dose, which is 


still being evaluated. 


This recommendation is based on the fol-- 


following factors: People working at the 


Hanford Nuclear Reservation during this time 


period worked in the early years of nuclear 


weapons research and production. Number two, 


NIOSH review of the available monitoring data, 


as well as the available source term and other 


information, found that they lacked adequate 


information necessary to conduct accurate 


individual internal dose reconstructions for 


plutonium and fission products during the time 


period in question. Number three, NIOSH 


determined that health may have been endangered 


for these Hanford Nuclear Reservation workers 

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during the time period in question. The Board 


concurs with this determination. 


Enclosed is supporting documentation from the 


recent Advisory Board meeting held in Richland, 


Washington where this Special Exposure Cohort 


was discussed. If any of these items are 


unavailable at this time, they will follow 


shortly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, you've heard the motion. Is 


there a second? 


 MR. PRESLEY: I'll second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Seconded. Is there discussion on 


the motion? 


 (No responses) 


 It appears that there is none. Are you ready 


to vote? 


Okay, and we will have two abstentions -- are 


those considered abstentions? That is those 


who are conflicted. 


 DR. WADE: Right, those who are conflicted may 


not vote. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Those in -- so we have one, two, 


three, four, five, six, seven voting here. And 


we --


 DR. WADE: And Gen is on the phone. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: And Gen is on the phone, that will 


be eight, and we will also -- we're -- will 


need to get the votes of -- of the other two 


members, but I will see what the vote is here. 


Okay, all those in favor, aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


Kind of raise your hand, we'll make sure -- 


okay, we have all hands showing here. Gen 


Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Aye. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Aye, okay. So in any event, the 


motion will -- has carried. We will still get 


the votes of the other members for the record, 


and we will have written copies of this motion 


for editorial review later today, I guess -- 


it's not tomorrow. Okay. 


But it appears to me that the wording is in 


accordance with our normal format for 


recommendations to the Secretary. 


Thank you very much. 


 DR. WADE: Could I just ask NIOSH to go to the 


microphone -- the petitioner did raise the 


question about qualification dates and timing. 


Could we just clarify that for the record? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, for the record, we -- we 

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-- we did not intend to split it out and give 


each petition 180 days -- or give the -- 


breaking it out into two different sub-- 


subsequently making it 360 days. The intent 


was, and we had identified that at the February 


Board meeting, was this is such a large time 


period and so much documentation, we recognized 


the easiest way -- or the most efficient way 


was to -- to handle those early years where it 


had a specific problem and -- and then complete 


the evaluation on the later years in a second 


evaluation. We laid out our time frame. No 


intentions of going to a 360 days. And I think 


we -- the way we laid it out was to try to get 


it done as quickly as possible. 


 DR. WADE: And what next we can expect is phase 


two report in September? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: That is correct. We're on 


schedule for completion in early September. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Uh-huh. 


AGENCY UPDATES
 

DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY


 DR. ZIEMER: We -- we are going to move now to 


the item called agency updates, and more 


specifically this refers to the Dow Madison 

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137 

petition and some concerns that were raised by 


Dr. McKeel. And let me also refer to the 


letter that was referred to in the public 


comment period and make one clarification on 


that for Dr. McKeel. 


At the time that the Board passed the motion 


instructing the Chair to write that letter and 


the reference to the, quote, next meeting, the 


next meeting was in fact this meeting. The 


other Denver Board meeting was actually 


scheduled after that motion. And in -- in 


fact, the final letter that I ended up sending 


to the Secretary, after going back and looking 


at the Board's motion and the fact that that 


had been made before that sort of emergency 


Denver meeting was scheduled, Dan, I'll just 


mention that my -- my final letter to the 


Secretary changed the words from next meeting 


to the July meeting of the Board. So it is at 


-- it is at this meeting that we asked that -- 


that that be done. 


I also want to point out that this letter, like 


all of our correspondence to the Secretary -- 


these are recommendations. We do not direct 


the Secretary to do anything. He responds at 

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his pleasure. Nor does he direct other 


agencies to do things. They respond at his 


(sic) pleasure. I might tell you that I -- I 


have not received any direct response from the 


Secretary to that letter. We have had some 


verbal feedback and Lew has given us some 


verbal feedback so that we know that actions 


have proceeded. But I just wanted to preface 


that so that everybody's clear that it was at 


this meeting that we're asking for a response 


from both the -- the contractor and NIOSH. 


Now the Board does -- is not really in a 


position of directing NIOSH, either. 


Technically, if we have something that we are 


mandating that we think NIOSH should do, we 


have to recommend that to the Secretary and 


he's their boss and he would do that. 


Nonetheless, NIOSH was here and heard the 


request and -- and had to think about how they 


would respond, and there are some implications 


in terms of -- and we'll let Larry speak to 


that in terms of what they can legally do and 


not do, based on what are considered eligible 


facilities. There are some responses that our 


contractor did do and we'll let John report on 

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that in a minute. 


Lew, you may have some other preliminary 


comments and then we'll hear from Larry. 
I 


think we will also hear from Labor and DOE by 


phone, and also then we'll hear from John, as 


well. 


 DR. WADE: Only to tell you what I know of the 


Secretary's response. I do know that the 


Secretary received Dr. Ziemer's letter and has 


sent a response that, I am told, is making its 


way through channels in the Department of HHS 


and Dr. Ziemer said he has not yet received it, 


so I can only take that as the fact. 


Larry, do you want to report? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, thank you. At the 


conclusion of the May meeting in Denver, after 


this discussion about Dow, I had two action 


items as I understood the Board -- excuse me, 


sorry. I had two action items that I felt came 


to me to follow up on, one of which was to 


contact the other two Departments and try to 


verify their position on the residual time -- 


residual contamination time period at Dow and 


whether or not they viewed anything that had 


been brought forward in -- in Dr. McKeel's 

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presentation and submission as being evidence 


that -- that the designation for this facility 


should be adjusted in any way, shape or form, 


either to extend the period or otherwise. 


So I -- I directed that an e-mail be sent 


inquiring of both agencies about this in my 


absence, and that was done. A letter came to 


me in response to that e-mail from Pat 


Worthington at DOE and I apologize here 


publicly to Dr. McKeel that I didn't have that 


shared. I'd asked that it be shared with him 


and -- and in a flurry of activity, we seem to 


have dropped the ball on that and I am sorry, 


Dr. McKeel, that we didn't get you that 


particular letter that was addressed to me that 


was relevant to your concerns. 


Another letter was generated based upon my 


request. As Dr. McKeel informed you in his 


public comments, that letter came to him 


directly from Pete Turcic, and Mr. Turcic can 


speak for himself about this, but he -- in my 


view of the letter, he chose to take the 


opportunity to speak about this particular 


situation and the other particular request that 


Mr. McKeel had -- Dr. McKeel had forwarded with 

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141 

regard to use of the subpoena authority. 


The -- the second action item that I heard the 


Board request of NIOSH was to pursue and assess 


the ability to reconstruct the thorium dose 


during the residual period. I have not acted 


upon that and -- and I have not expended any 


resources to do so. It would be illegal for me 


to do that, and the reason why is that is 


outside -- it's not a covered period, it's not 


covered exposure, and until I have a 


determination from DOE and DOL that it would be 


covered under this program, I cannot expend 


resources to do that. 


So that's basically my report on -- on where 


things stand and my action items. 


 DR. WADE: Who's on the phone, Larry, could you 


introduce... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I believe that Pat Worthington 


has -- has joined us by phone. She's in travel 


status and so I -- I compliment her on her 


efforts to try to get -- get in touch with the 


Board here. I also believe there may be other 


DOE folks on -- Regina Kano, I'm not sure who 


else, and I think that from Department of Labor 


we have Jeff Kotsch, and perhaps others as 

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well. 


 MR. KOTSCH: I'm here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Could we verify who's on the line 


from DOE? 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: This is Pat Worthington. Can 


you hear me? 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Pat. We're having 


trouble hearing you, if you could speak -- 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: This is Pat Worthington. Can 

you hear me? 

 DR. WADE: Yes. 

 MS. WORTHINGTON: Okay. We're actually in 

different locations and we'll try to give you a 


coordinated status in answering questions. 


Gina Kano is on the phone. Joe -- Joe 


Lebowski* is on the phone. Libby White, for 


historical reasons, is on the phone. Anyone 


else, Gina, joining us from DOE? 


 MS. KANO: Greg -- Greg Lewis. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: And Greg Lewis is here, as 


well. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I -- I didn't catch all 


those names. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: Greg Lewis is on the line, 

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143 

Gina Kano, Libby White and myself -- and Joe 


Lebowski. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And shall we hear from 


Labor first, Jeff? Do you -- do you want to 


make any comments on the issue for Labor? 


 MR. KOTSCH: I was -- I was going to -- am I -- 


can you hear me? 


 DR. ZIEMER: We can hear you here. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Okay. Well, I can hear myself 


here, so I'm okay. 


We have sent -- Pete had sent a letter to Dr. 


McKeel back on May 22nd. I don't know whether 


-- how much of that is -- has been shared with 


the Board. Has that been discussed at all in 


any kind of detail? 


 (No responses) 


 Dr. Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I think Dr. McKeel may have 


sh-- I know -- I know he shared some letters 


with me that -- I -- I'm not sure which one 


we're referring to. Oh, Dr. McKeel's 


approaching the mike here. Maybe you can shed 


some light on this. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Actually I did write an e-mail 


that responded -- in detail, I thought -- to 

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Pat Worthington's letter of 5/23. And the 


letter that -- the e-mail that Dave Sundin had 


written for Larry Elliott contained two main 


points and I gave my rebuttal to both of those 


two points which concerned me, in particular 


point number one about whether any of the 


purchase orders from Mallinckrodt were 


readable. And Pat Worthington's letter had 


said well, no, they were -- they were -- they 


were not -- they were not legible and that a 


staff person had actually looked at those 


letters and at those purchase orders and Regina 


Kano had also mentioned to me that -- that 


actually the -- a lot of the letter had been 


drafted by Roger Anders before he retired from 


DOE on June the 1st. 


Anyway, my response back to -- to that letter 


has not actually been responded to by Ms. 


Worthington, and I did send copies to the Board 


and to NIOSH, so I -- I tried to widely share 


my comments and I would note for the record, I 


never have gotten the -- the original e-mails 


from OCAS to either Department of Labor or to 


the Department of Energy. I did get the copy 


that Pat -- of Pat Worthington's letter and 

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that was not delivered to me until July the 6th 


by -- via, I guess, Jason Broehm to Robert 


Stephan of Senator Obama's office. So that's ­

- that's the status on what I've heard back 


from the Department of Energy. 


 But the answer is yes, I did widely share those 


responses. And I think in my e-mail I put the 


-- the wording of the DOE response back. I 


didn't send a copy of the letter to everybody, 


but actually I must say, since NIOSH was 


responding to the mandate of the Board, I -- I 


mean it's inconceivable to me that O-- OCAS not 


only did not send me those letters, but didn't 


send them to the Board of their 5/8 e-mail. 


That -- that's astounding to me, if that's 


true. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Dr. McKeel, this is Jeff Kotsch 


with the Department of Labor. You did receive 


our letter. Right? 


 DR. MCKEEL: Jeff, what I received was a letter 


from Peter Turcic dated May 22nd that was 


responding to a letter he said from me of March 


27th, and that letter did not mention a word 


that he was responding to anything that 

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happened at the Board on May the 4th. It did 


not mention anything about being a response to 


Larry Elliott and OCAS's 5/8 e-mail. So yes, I 


got the letter, but since the letter arrived -- 


you know, was dated 5/22, two days before Dr. 


Ziemer's Board letter, I didn't really link the 


two events and the letter didn't have anything 


in there that -- that linked the two events. 


So that letter left me very confused. It 


mentioned that -- I think the phrase was that 


there was nothing legible that would lead 


Department of Labor to change the covered 


period. But it didn't mention what Department 


of Labor had actually looked at. And Dow 


Midland had sent us 79 purchase orders and only 


two of them, and one in particular, TDCC316, 


was the really relevant Mallinckrodt AEC/Dow 


purchase order. So to me, that letter was not 


at all specific. And you know, I -- I couldn't 


link it to anything that had happened at the 


May 4th Board meeting. And frankly, I wondered 


why that second item had been included when my 


letter in March only dealt with the subpoena 


power and asked DOL to do that. So obviously 


there's a miscommunication, but I -- I -- I 

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would not say it was clear at all that DOL was 


responding directly to the Board's mandate on ­

- on May 4th. 


 MR. KOTSCH: I think that a letter -- this is 


Jeff Kotsch. I think the letter started with ­

- you know, with -- with the March -- the 


initial March inquiry on the -- on the subpoena 


of Dow records and addressed that issue and 


then I -- I think -- I wasn't involved in the 


development of that particular letter, but I 


think it then went into address issues that 


were raised in the May Board meeting. It says 


on page 3 that a determination was made by DOL 


that -- after review of the 676 pages of 


documentation provided by Dow regarding, you 


know, whether to include the residual 


contamination period or the -- you know, the 


possible presence of thorium and -- and the 


purchase orders, and I think those 676 pages 


include the -- the purchase orders. 


 DR. MCKEEL: They do. But when I addressed the 


Board on May the 4th, I didn't mention anything 


except two of those purchase orders. They were 


the relevant ones and -- and to me, if 


somebody's going to respond in a definitive way 

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to evidence that I presented, they need to talk 


about my evidence, not just in a general, broad 


brush stroke of the 79 purchase orders but 


those two in particular, and not just those two 


in particular but the wording of those where, 


you know, you could read magnesium alloy 21-A 


and I linked that to a table from Dow that -- 


there are really only two possibilities. It 


could be ZK21-A, a non-thorium alloy, or HM21­

A, which I gave my reasons then and feel the 


same way it probably really referred to, and 


that was a magnesium-thorium alloy. And -- and 


Peter's letter did not mention any of those 


specifics at all. 


So I don't -- I don't really think that letter 


was a -- an adequate or a definitive response 


to the evidence that I presented to the Board. 


And like I say, again, the letter didn't even 


mention that it was in any way responding to 


the Board. It was like clearly out of the 


blue, and now I know that it wasn't out of the 


blue at all; it was in response to a letter 


that OCAS had sent to the Department of Labor, 


which I have never received. 


 MR. KOTSCH: I think those two purchase orders 

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were found to be essentially illegible and not, 


you know, useful for Labor to make a -- you 


know, (broken transmission) petition as far as 


(broken transmission) and -- and I -- as far as 


a determination to whether to include 


additional time. The other thing is that the 


Department of Labor does not consider those 


purchase orders to be a sufficient basis for 


that deci-- for a decision on that (broken 


transmission). 


 DR. MCKEEL: Well, Jeff, I'll also mention and 


counter that argument. Clearly in my 


PowerPoint which the Board has, you have, 


Department of Energy has, the letters that I'm 


mentioning were quite clearly visible. It was 


a terrible copy, I'll ad-- I'll admit that. We 


went to the step -- which nobody else did, by 


the way -- to recontact Dow Midland and its 


chief counsel, Dave Burnick*, and ask him could 


they please look and see if there was a better, 


cleaner copy or -- or in fact the original 


purchase order, and that was not available, 


apparently. But -- but in addition, even 


though Department of Labor doesn't -- may not 


consider that purchase order legible, also not 

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mentioned in Peter's letter was the fact that 


we've got testimony in the way of sworn 


affidavits from Dow workers testifying that 


they sent Dow thorium-magnesium alloys to other 


AE sites besides Mallinckrodt, and they 


included Rocky Flats and more recently there is 


some evidence that perhaps Los Alamos and Oak 


Ridge should be included. Peter's letter 


didn't mention that evidence at all and that's 


clear cut evidence by multiple workers at that 


site. So once again, I -- I really don't think 


that letter was a definitive response, and I 


don't think it even addressed our evidence, and 


that bothers me a lot. That -- that letter was 


not written to me. I had no knowledge of what 


was in the original letter from Larry Elliott, 


and I have -- you know, the response from 


Department of Labor was not discussed with me. 


I fully expected after the last Board meeting 


that Labor and Department of Energy, which -- 


which I have had with them -- and then -- which 


would include me and the Board and probably in 


particular Dr. Melius, who made the two 


motions, would all have had a dialogue. And --


and I am extremely distressed that we've not 

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had any dialogue at all except with the 


Department of Labor about this. So -- so from 


the Department -- I mean from the Department 


Labor we've had no -- no dialogue. I have had 


some with the Department of Energy, which I 


appreciate. 


Anyway... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Dan. Now I guess we're 


still awaiting the official response from the 


Secretary, which maybe will delineate his 


interactions both with Labor and with Energy on 


this issue. And I believe what Dan is asking 


is some more definitive evidence that those 


documents that he cited had actually been fully 


evaluated by Labor to make that decision. This 


is not something that this Board -- we do not 


mandate what Labor does. They're aware of this 


issue, but I think we will need to see, and put 


this on our agenda, what the -- we need to look 


at the response from the Secretary to us in 


terms of what we can do next because that will 


dictate both what NIOSH can do and in turn what 


this Board can do on this issue. But certainly 


we -- it would be helpful to have a more formal 


response from Labor at some point, either up or 

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down, on that issue. 


I don't know, Lew, if you can add to that, but 


 DR. WADE: Well, I mean I think everything you 


say is true. It -- it seems to me while 


everyone is here -- and it's not the Board's 


role directly -- if we could facilitate the 


types of interactions that appear to be 


necessary, that would be a good thing while we 


have everyone here and present. DOE is on the 


phone, DOL is on the phone, Dan is here, the 


Board is present. It would seem to me that a 


step forward would be a good thing to consider 


taking now while we have all the parties 


present and in discussion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let -- let me ask a -- a 


couple of questions. What information do we 


need from DOE at this point; that would be one. 


Number two, is it -- is it feasible or 


reasonable -- and Jeff, maybe informally I can 


ask you this. Can we -- can we expect a -- a 


more let's say formal decision from La-- from 


Labor that would confirm that they have 


examined the documents -- what led to the 


request from the Board was the -- our looking 

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at the documents that Dr. McKeel presented, but 


recognizing that we ourselves cannot do 


anything on those, but in a sense asking that 


they be examined carefully, may or may not 


agree with Dr. McKeel's conclusions but at 


least to show that they have been fully 


examined, those specific ones that seem to at 


least show a connection to -- to the thorium. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Dr. Ziemer, it's Jeff Kotsch. 


Certainly if we got a formal request, you know, 


we would -- we would obviously respond to that 


fully -- you know, fully. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. What do we need from 


Labor -- or from Energy at this point? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Dr. Ziemer, this is -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: Well, actually the Department of 


Energy, through Pat Worthington, has responded 


to two questions from Dave Sundin and OCAS. 


And so in -- in my view, DOE has not really 


responded to the Board, which was seeking the 


information in the first place, so I think 


Department of Energy should take into 


consideration all the subsequent conversations 


we've had about their 5/22 response from Pat 


Worthington, look at the issue again, revisit 

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the documents that I pointed to and then send a 


formal recommendation letter back to the Board. 


I think that would be proper, and I'd hope send 


copies to everybody, including me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And again, that formal action from 


DOE may be dependent on what the Secretary did 


in terms of the follow-up. So it seems to me 


that this is going to have to come back to our 


agenda, Lew, either our phone call agenda or 


the next full meeting, because we do not yet 


have a response from the Secretary. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: And I wanted to say that we 


did --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: -- receive in fact, last 


week, a request -- a letter from Dr. McKeel 


where --


 DR. WADE: Pat, will you --


 MS. WORTHINGTON: -- (unintelligible) --


 DR. WADE: -- we can't hear you, Pat. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: -- and addressing that letter 


that was (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. WADE: Pat, can you hear me? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Pat, we can't hear you. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: Can't hear me? 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe if you speak louder or -- 


 DR. WADE: But if you make an effort, I think 


we could. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: Okay, what about this? 


 DR. ZIEMER: A little better. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: Little bit better? Okay. 


Last week we did receive a FAX from Dr. McKeel 


and we are in the process of responding to that 


particular FAX. We have not yet completed the 


response, but we're working on it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. They -- they're saying that 


they're working on a response to Dr. McKeel at 


the moment. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: A request that came in last 


week, but everything that we've received to 


date we believe we have been responsive to Dr. 


McKeel and to the Board and to NIOSH and to 


Senator Obama in terms of getting information 


back to them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Pat. Board 


members, any other input on this? I -- does he 


want to speak on this issue? 


 DR. WADE: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. I just got a note here 


that Robert Stephan is -- from Senator Obama's 

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office is -- is on the line and does have a 


comment. 


 Robert, are you there? 


 MR. STEPHAN: I am. Can you hear me okay? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Robert. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Two -- two points. With respect 


to Dr. Worthington's letter, item -- item -- 


well, there's two items here. One is that she 


says yes, the document is not legible enough to 


prove the magnesium-thorium connection. 


And then two, she says (unintelligible) coming 


out of Mallinckrodt that went into nuc-- 


nuclear weapons were uranium and uranium 


compounds, not magnesium/thorium alloy. 


So two points. Number one, we're -- we're back 


to a debate between worker testimony and an 


illegible document. And I'm just wondering if 


someone there can clarify whether the 


legislation or any regulations or rules speaks 


to what we do in this situation, and are we 


back to a point when the workers have to have 


this sufficient documentation to prove their 


case. Essentially, their word is not enough. 


And so if the statement is that the document is 


not legible enough, that's fine. But Senator 

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Obama would like to have a clarification that, 


per the legislation or some other rule, that if 


a document is not legible then the workers 


essentially are not compensated. 


The second point is that from Dr. Worthington's 


letter where she says the products coming out 


of Mallinckrodt that went into nuclear weapons 


were uranium, not magnesium/thorium alloy, was 


-- that's fine, but Senator Obama thinks the 


Department of Energy needs to supply us -- and 


-- and more importantly, Dr. McKeel and the 


petitioners, the -- the claimants -- the 


information that they have in their possession 


to make that decision. Not that we don't take 


their word for it, but we just can't take their 


word for it on such an important issue. 


So one, Dr. Worthington, if you'll consider 


that, we would appreciate you providing to Dr. 


McKeel and to our office whatever information 


you have to make this decision -- or to make 


this statement, I should say. 


And number two, maybe Dr. Wade or somebody 


there to help us clarify what do we do when the 


-- the crux of this argument is a debate 


between worker testimony and a document that's 

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not legible. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: I do need to point out --


this is Pat Worthington again, I hope you can 


hear me. I do want to point out that we are 


committed to going to (unintelligible) to get 


further clarification to see if there is any 


additional information that would indicate that 


these compounds were used in nuclear weapons. 


We -- we are committed to an addition effort 


reaching out to (unintelligible) to see if that 


information is available and for some reason it 


wasn't (unintelligible) weren't aware of it. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Thank you. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: Was that clear to everyone -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MS. WORTHINGTON: -- that we are reaching out 


to (unintelligible) on this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Robert, thank 


you for your questions and comments. I want to 


make an observation and -- subject to 


correction by others, but in a sense we -- we 


seem to be ending up focusing on an issue which 


is a DOL issue, basically. And I'm wondering, 


and I don't know, Jeff, if you can answer this, 


but for example, the -- the affidavits of the 

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workers that were obtained by the petitioners 


from Dow, have those also been considered or 


can they be considered in the DOL decision. I 


think that's basically what Robert was asking. 


What weight, if any, is given to the 


affidavits; can they become part of the 


decision-making process in addition to the 


documents that have been cited? And again, I 


don't -- I don't know that I want to belabor 


this and have the Board spend a lot of time on 


an issue which probably has to be resolved 


between the petitioners, perhaps, and Labor. I 


don't know, I -- maybe some others can help me 


on this. Or Lew, can you give us direction on 


that? It seems like we're -- we've moved into 


an issue which is essentially a decision of -- 


of Labor, even though it has to be supplemented 


by Energy and whatever else we can find. 


 DR. WADE: If I could speak very briefly, three 


points. I believe you're correct in terms of 


the DOL/DOE issues and the need for clear 


communication between Dr. McKeel and those 


agencies. And I would -- I'd like to see us 


facilitate that. It's not our role. If we 


could, that would be good. 

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I also think that Dr. McKeel has, to me, made 


certain arguments that say that it is still the 


province of the Board to act on an expansion of 


the class for Dow Chemical workers, regardless 


of what those agencies might do. And -- and I 


think it would be worth the Board hearing that, 


Dr. McKeel, just so it's on the record. So I 


think that one might be within our purview. 


think you're correct on the others, though. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Yeah, and I think the point 


was made be-- in -- in previous meetings, but 


you certainly can make it again and... 


 DR. MCKEEL: Well, I -- I can do that very -- 


very succinctly, I think. It is my 


understanding from Richard Miller and others 


that the Act itself, EEOICPA, does not preclude 


awarding an SEC based on the residual 


contamination period. That would be point one. 


Nobody that I'm aware of has yet contradicted 


that statement. 


Point number two I think we saw in action 


yesterday where the Board voted an SEC for the 


second Ames Lab petition that essentially 


covered the residual contamination period, the 


period after the production period had ended. 


I 
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Now the -- the difference between Ames and what 


we're asking for Dow is there -- there are 


several differences, but the cleanup period, 


the renovation period of Wilhelm Hall, extended 


over several years, whereas the cleanup period 


at Dow Madison, you know, took only a week by 


the Army Corps of Engineers. So there was a 


long intervening period that is now classified 


as residual period from 1961 to '98 at -- at 


Dow Madison. 


But -- but as far as this statement by 


Department of Energy that uranium and uranium 


products were the only products at Dow Madison, 


we -- we have presented the Board voluminous 


data about the extent and the amount of thorium 


used at that -- at that plant. And the Board, 


I don't think, contests that. We've had four 


worker outreach meetings now giving voluminous 


testimony about that. Transcripts of all four 


meetings are now available. Three of them, you 


know, are posted on the OCAS web site and we 


have another one now from the SC&A meeting that 


testifies to that. So I mean unless I'm 


missing something important, if you can vote an 


S-- SEC for Ames for the residual period, then 

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it see-- and -- and that was done without any 


extra legal opinion from the Secretary of HHS 


that I'm aware of. It was just done. And I --


I don't think there's any reason why it cannot 


be done. So I guess that's the gist of my 


argument. 


Now as -- as far as it being my sole 


responsibility to interact with Department of 


Labor and Department of Energy, I really don't 


think that's fair because I -- I think that the 


first -- I think what the Board should declare, 


and I -- how -- I certainly wouldn't even 


suggest how to do that, but I would think a 


legal opinion, basically, from HHS, for 


example. That's what I thought we were going 


to get. You know, the -- I -- we're actually 


talking about legal opinions here that need to 


be rendered. 


 Larry Elliott just said he could not proceed to 


look at the thorium issues during the residual 


period. He said that was, quote, illegal. 


Well, then my question would be well, why -- if 


that's illegal, why was not looking at the 


thorium exposures for the Ames Lab during the 


residual period also illegal? So there's a -- 

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there's a major discrepancy and a logical 


inconsistency. 


But in any case, you know, that's something 


that's gon-- I -- I can't resolve that with 


NIOSH when they make a statement like that, 


that they can't even look at the residual 


period thorium. That -- that's -- I -- that -- 


that doesn't make logical sense to me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Actually there -- 


there is a -- a difference here and here's -- 


legal counsel's going to clarify. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Well, I'm not sure that 


legal counsel helps clarify things ever -- or 


always, but at Ames, that was a covered 


exposure and it was a -- so therefore NIOSH 


could look at it. In this case, we have the 


opinion of -- is it DOE or DOL? -- I think it's 


DOE that the thorium is not a covered exposure 


and that's why it's not looked at. 


 DR. WADE: Maybe I could just expand a bit on 


that and -- and again, please correct me if I'm 


wrong. I don't think anyone is debating, Dr. 


McKeel, that SEC status can be granted for a 


residual period. We had a discussion 


yesterday. I think the -- the policy of the 

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Department is that during the covered period 


both commercial and AEC dose can be used to 


establish dose, and therefore conversely can be 


used to determine if an SEC should be granted. 


During the residual period it's only AEC dose 


that can be used, and I think that's the issue 


that -- that separates Ames from Dow Madison. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Well, that's true. So what really 


needs to be -- needs to happen, since we've 


presented lines of evidence which in each -- 


each line I think is compelling in and of 


itself. One line is the Mallinckrodt purchase 


orders that say that Dow Madison sold thorium 


alloy directly to Mallinckrodt, an AEC 


facility. I believe that Department of 


Energy's interpretation that that does not 


constitute an AEC activity is -- is just, on 


the face of it, not -- not accurate because if 


you sell products to an AEC facility that -- 


whose only job is to make atomic weapons, 


that's all that the -- it -- Dow didn't sell 


magnesium alloy to Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, 


the chemical company, as a -- as a whole, which 


made all sorts of products and still does. 


They sold magnesium/thorium alloy to the 

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uranium division, and the only thing the 


uranium division made was nuclear weapons, 


period. They didn't make any other product. 


We've also -- that's one line and -- and I say, 


and I think the Board has said, that with your 


own eyes you can read the letters 21A and you 


can certainly read the words magnesium alloy on 


that purchase order. 


 Now somebody's got to fill in the gaps whether 


that is magnesium/thorium alloy, but we've 


given you some reasons why we think it -- it is 


a th-- thorium alloy. 


 Completely separate from that, as stand-alone 


evidence, we've given you, we think, very solid 


testimony from the workers that 


magnesium/thorium alloy, truckloads of it, were 


sent from Dow Madison, observed by the shipping 


department, and were sent to Rocky Flats, AEC 


operation. Again, Rocky Flats only made 


nuclear weapons. That -- that was their job. 


That was their purpose in being. 


So, gee, I think that's pretty strong evidence. 


And you know, we have -- as I -- don't want to 


bore you with again, but we've outlined in 


detail the steps we've gone through to recover 

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the missing documentation and records and we've 


done a lot more since May the 4th to keep on 


looking for that, including extensive 


interactions with the Department of Energy on a 


FOIA request to look even harder. And Regina 


Kano and Pat Worthington have helped us a great 


deal on that, so we've been working hard 


together. 


 DR. WADE: No one refutes that. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: But again, the issue of covered 


period is a DOL issue and the issue of covered 


facility is a DOE issue, and that's where those 


determinations --


 DR. MCKEEL: I -- I underst--


 DR. WADE: -- need to be made before this Board 


or NIOSH --


 DR. MCKEEL: Dr. Wade, I understand that. But 


I've got to say one other thing and then I -- I 


really will be quiet. But may-- maybe -- I 


mean we're all in the business of conducting 


high-level scientific research. I did that for 


31 years. I wrote grants, defended them, and I 


-- I understand the language in Paul Ziemer's 


letter, and so does everybody at that table. 

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It was a letter to the Secretary of HHS, and 


although we only -- I understand that you all 


only advise and we only ask, but clearly one of 


the directions was -- in that letter was the 


Secretary of HHS was going to -- or going to be 


asked or was requested to contact the 


Secretaries of Labor and -- and Energy. And I 


think those words are in the letter. 


Now I don't know how else you'd construe that, 


but that was a direct request from the 


governing agency for this Board to the 


Departments of Labor and Energy to work on this 


problem. And here we are on July the 19th of a 


letter that's been transmitted on May the 24th 


and -- and we are told that there is a reply 


coming through the pipeline which we haven't 


yet gotten. So presumably when the Secretary 


sends us his letter, we will know something 


more. 


What I do know, and this is something that 


Department of Energy -- I asked them to check. 


I said well, have you all gotten any directive 


from Secr-- Energy Secretary Bodman, and Regina 


wrote back and said she had checked and that 


no, they had not. So I think it's reasonable 

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at least to be concerned why apparently -- I -- 


I understand that things may be going on in the 


background, but pretty soon I think it's 


reasonable to want to know what -- what has 


been going on. So that -- that -- that's 


really the only position I can take. 


I'm willing to work with the Department of 


Labor and Energy, but I -- I -- I really do 


think, because of that letter, that -- that the 


actions that are taken by Energy and Labor are 


directly linked to this Board's request. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Dan. And I might add, 


it certainly is not our expectation that the 


burden is on you to try to solve that issue. 


In fact, that's the reason that this Board sent 


that letter in the first place is to try to 


assist in resolving this issue. So we -- we 


understand that -- and -- and thank you for all 


the documentation that you've produced that's 


been helpful to NIOSH and to the Board in 


considering Dow, as well as some other 


facilities. And although you're a hard worker, 


we don't want to have you feel like you're 


having to do the work for the Board or for the 


other agencies. 

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 But ho-- hopefully we will get a response that 


will allow us to move forward on this issue. 


And again, we will -- will follow up on it, so 


thank you very much. 


 DR. WADE: Lunch. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think it's lunchtime. 


 DR. WADE: No, we're not bad. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Huh? 


 DR. WADE: We're supposed to be back at 1:30. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. We're at the lunch hour -- 


actually we're past it by about 15 minutes, but 


try to get back here as close as you can to 


1:30 so we can complete the rest of the agenda. 


We're in recess then for lunch. Thank you. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 12:35 p.m. 


to 1:45 p.m.) 


 DR. WADE: I'm looking at the audi-- the AV 


guy. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Hello? 

UNIDENTIFIED: They're starting. 

UNIDENTIFIED: I think so. 

 DR. WADE: Gen Roessler, are you with us? 


DR. ROESSLER: Yes, I am. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Gen. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Gen. So we have a 

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quorum. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, we have more than a quorum. 


UPDATE ON STATUS OF ROCKY FLATS CASES


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, our first item here this 


afternoon is an update on the status of the 


Rocky Flats claims, and Jim Neton is going to 


present that. Dr. Neton. 


DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I'll be 


brief. I just have a few slides to update the 


Board as to where we are with the re-- reevaluation of cases that were affected by the 


changes that were made to the Rocky Flats site 


profile during the deliberations for the SEC 


process. If you recall at the last Board 


meeting while I was on the rental car bus, I 


was speaking to you about a time frame for that 


and I think we committed to be -- some -- in a 


two-month period to have this -- these cases 


reviewed and move forward. 


 The first slide shows the number of cases to 


NIOSH from Department of Labor in total from 


the Rocky Flats site, and that's 1,249. Of 


that 1,249, though, only 1,111 have required a 


dose reconstruction. The other two column -- 


the other two in the bottom column you see, 

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there's 218 claims that are still active and 20 


claims have been pulled. Of that 1,111, 339 


cases have a probability of causation of -- 


that should be greater than or equal to 50 


percent, and the remainder of 672 had a 


probability of causation of less than 50 


percent. So that's the universe of potentially 


affected cases that we have to deal with in 


implementing these changes, or evaluating these 


changes. 


Just to re-- refresh your memory, there were 


four -- four changes made during the SEC 


deliberation process to the site profile, or 


changes committed to be made to the site 


profile, more accurately. The first one and 


the biggest one that affects the most cases, as 


you'll see later, is the exposure to type super 


S plutonium. That's the very insoluble type of 


plutonium that provides a much larger dose to 


the lung than the regular type S. And that has 


been outlined, and we've discussed this with, 


in TIB-49. And we also had begun, even prior 


to the Board's deliberation and recommending 


that Rocky Flats be added as a class, have 


instituted a Program Evaluation Plan, PEP 

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Number 12, to deal with those cases on a 


complex-wide basis. More than just Rocky Flats 


is affected by this TIB. 


The next two issues are the use of the 95th 


percentile intakes for unmonitored workers, and 


that's either for an unmonitored worker prior 


to D&D period, or after the D&D period. These 


are two slightly different distributions. In 


fact, the -- the new -- the -- the coworker -- 


the coworker distribution for the D&D workers 


is -- is slightly different. It's fairly new. 


We added that as -- as a part of the SEC review 


process. 


Then the fourth one has to do with the new 


neutron dose model for workers between January 


1st, '67 and December 31st, 1970. That's the 


period of -- of time in which the Board felt 


that we could do dose reconstructions for 


neutrons with sufficient accuracy. That's the 


-- the very end tail of the Neutron Dose 


Reconstruction Project data. So this is a --


represents a fairly small number of cases, we 


believe. 


I mentioned that the -- I'll go through the 


super S in some detail because that -- that, in 

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essence, is the biggest amount of work that we 


have to do. And in fact, that -- that reevaluation tends to subsume the other two 


classes. 


 There's 4,490 complex-wide claims that are 


potentially affected. That is across the 


entire DOE -- of all the dose reconstructions 


we've done, there's a large number. Of the 672 


Rocky Flats cases with a POC of less than 50 


percent we've determined that 409 are 


potentially affected by the type super S. It 


doesn't mean they are. It just means that we 


can't tell on the surface at -- just by looking 


at them on the surface. The reason that 409 


out of 672 was they're -- not all cases were 


necessarily reconstructed for plutonium 


exposure. Or in fact, the super S issue really 


affects mostly cases that were reconstructed 


based on bioassay, urinalysis data. Cases that 


were reconstructed from exposure models like 


air samplers or something of that nature are 


not affected by this change. 


About 95 of those 409 cases had employment 


during the SEC period. That is 250 days' 


employment prior to 1967. I've got a couple of 

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slides to sort of winnow this down as to what 


we're dealing with, so just bear with me. I'll 


get to the bottom line fairly quickly. 


Forty of those 95 claims have an SEC-covered 


cancer and 250 days of employment, and 19 of 


which we determined are potentially neutron-


exposed. That is, they were included in the 


original NDRP project reviews, so we estimate 


that 19 of these 409 cases might be added -- I 


emphasize "might"; we -- you know, Labor makes 


-- Department of Labor makes that determination 


-- and will not need to be re-evaluated. And 


we just have a cautionary note here that this 


does not mean that only 19 cases will be added 


to the SEC. This is out of this sub-population 


that we're looking at. Okay. And there may be 


-- and I -- I sort of want to emphasize that 


again, that there may be other cases that -- 


that will go SEC in addition to that. 


So the bottom line here -- I'll slip to the 


last bullet here -- is we have 390 cases that 


we have pulled to be re-evaluated to determine 


the potential impact of super S, so that's -- 


that's what we're working on right now. We've 


pulled those cases -- we've identified those 

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cases. We'll be pulling them. The tools --


this -- this -- fortunately the super S issue 


lends itself to automation. And it's my 


understanding that the tools have been 


developed to automate this process so that one 


can put in the -- the new model and have it 


just recalculate the -- the data and repopulate 


the IREP input sheet and that sort of thing. 


And Oak Ridge Associated Universities is 


working on that for us, so we're -- we're in 


that process. 


Like I said at the beginning, of the 390 cases, 


we believe that most of the cases that are 


affected by the coworker models are already 


being re-evaluated in this super S because if 


it's a coworker model, worked with plutonium, 


it would be a super S case, as well as most 


neutron-exposed workers were in the plutonium 


areas. So we do believe that this 3-- I forgot 


how many I said now, 300-plus cases that we're 


re-evaluating now, we're going to implement 


both the super S -- look for coworker, look for 


neutrons, and move them out. But there will be 


some additional cases that we'll have to pull 


through the process. 

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We're -- we're sort of ahead of the game on 


this because, as you know, the -- the Secretary 


is still working on -- you know, the 


recommendation letter just came out from the 


Board and so this -- this -- these cases -- 


this SEC class has not yet been added, so 


there's a little bit of uncertainty as to which 


cases ultimately would be pulled by the 


Department of Labor, but we're being proactive 


in getting the jump on -- on working through 


these through the super S cases. 


So just a brief summary slide. We've 


identified the population of affected cases. 


We know what they are. We've initiated reevaluation. We've got the work tools in place 


to do that and, as I said, we're starting with 


the super S cases 'cause we believe that's the 


biggest chunk of the work that we need to deal 


with. 


And that's -- that's it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good, thank you, Jim. Now 


let's see if there's any questions on Jim's 


report -- Mike. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) office, can we 


get copies of those slides? 

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177

 MR. GIBSON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


DR. NETON: I thought since Mark left I was off 


the hook, but... 


 MR. GIBSON: On the fifth slide --


UNIDENTIFIED: I can't hear you. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- it states that 19 claims are 


neutron-exposed workers and he was concerned 


how this was determined. 


DR. NETON: I -- I believe that those were 


pulled out based on the fact that they had 


worked in one of the -- well, they were in the 


NDRP study. The NDRP study had -- had 


evaluated all workers who had the potential -- 


I think under the regulatory exposure at that 


time -- 500 millirem per year exposure. So at 


a minimum, those 19 are going in, so we -- we 


believe -- and in our opinion, those -- those 


cases would be going into the SEC. But again, 

we don't make that determination. Department 

of Labor does that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Mike. 

 MR. GIBSON: And --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) slide? 


 MR. GIBSON: -- Mark mentions he'd -- he'd 


asked for a list of buildings which would be 

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included in the definition of monitored or 


should have been monitored to look -- 


DR. NETON: Correct. 


 MR. GIBSON: Do you have that available yet 


or... 


DR. NETON: No, we -- we -- we need to work 


that out with the Department of Labor. They 


make the ultimate determination as to what is 


in that class. We have -- certainly will be 


collaborating with them. It's our opinion 


that, at a minimum, it will be the workers that 


were involved in the buildings that 


incorporated -- that were included in the NDRP 


study, and we talked about those buildings 


quite a bit during the SEC process. I don't 


have them off the top of my head. But it'll be 


a minimum of those buildings. We need to look 


to see if there are any other ancillary neutron 


exposures that -- that may be included because 


the monitoring threshold was 500 for the NDRP 


study -- millirem per year -- and our -- the 


definition that's -- that's employed in our 


case is workers who had the potential to 


receive 100 or more millirem per year. So we 


need to make sure that we -- we've got all the 

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buildings identified, but at a minimum it will 


be the NDRP buildings. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If I could follow up on that, 


Mike, in the original evaluation report and 


then in our recommendation, we actually had a 


definition. But I think what you're saying is 


that definition was not fully clear for -- for 


Labor. Was that the issue? Or -- there was 


some need to clarify exactly what was meant in 


-- in the recommendation, was that the case? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That is the case. We need to 


work with -- as Jim has said, we need to work 


with DOL and provide DOL a listing of the 


buildings. I know that -- I think Brant Ulsh 


is working on this --


DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- with others, and then we will 


approach DOL --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- with that listing and -- and 


vet it with them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I was just wondering how that 


impacts on the Secretary's recommendation. Is 


he having to wait for that definition? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: He is not having to wait for that 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay --


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that listing of --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- this is just a matter of -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- buildings. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- of clarifying it with Labor so 


they know how to administer it. 


DR. NETON: Exactly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very -- okay, thank you. 


 MR. GIBSON: A couple more. On that same 


slide, Jim, it states that there's 390 reevaluations for super S, and I know you 


mentioned -- just plug in the data. Do you 


have a time frame on... 


DR. NETON: We committed to two months and 


we're trying to make that -- make that goal. 


That would be next month sometime that we would 


hope to have those reprocessed. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. And how many -- 


DR. NETON: I'm sure there are people cringing 


back in Cincinnati when I say just plug it in 


and it comes out. I -- I tend to do that a lot 


and --


 DR. ZIEMER: It looks simple to the boss. 


DR. NETON: -- and that's probably an over­
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simplification of what's done, so I'll just -- 


I'll just state that for the record. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. And then on the -- finally, 


on the next-to-last slide, how many reevaluations for coworker intake models -- for ­

- how many re-evaluations are needed for the 


coworker intake models? 


DR. NETON: Right. As I said, we think that 


most of them will be picked up in the super S 


evaluation, but it's my understanding that very 


few cases were processed using the coworker 


models. I think we're in the several dozens 


range. But they've -- it -- you know, to the 


large extent, they will be picked up in the 


super S evaluations because the coworker model 


was primarily applied to plutonium workers and 


super S affects plutonium workers. 


 MR. GIBSON: And has the -- the number of D&D 


worker cases been assessed yet or... 


DR. NETON: No. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mike. Thanks. Gen 

Roessler, did you have a comment? We were 

hearing some phone background. 

DR. ROESSLER: No, that was somebody else on 


the line. 

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182

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 


DR. ROESSLER: Maybe they'll present their 


question now. 


UNIDENTIFIED: That was -- that was Carolyn 


Boller from Congressman Udall's office. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. Was there a comment 


from the Congressman's office? 


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


slides. 


 MS. BOLLER: Well, I just had asked for a copy 


of the slides and -- and Jason has just told me 


that we could get a copy. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. So that's been taken 


care of. 


 MS. BOLLER: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. We'll make 


sure that happens --


 MS. BOLLER: I do have one other question, 


though. When -- when they do the vote on the 


Rocky Flats SEC petition, were all members of 


the Board available or do we have some that did 


not vote? 


 DR. ZIEMER: We have one person that did not 


vote. That is Dr. Poston. Under the Board 


procedures, we will be officially obtaining his 

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vote and that will show up in the final vote 


count. 


 MS. BOLLER: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I believe that was -- I believe 


that was the only one -- yes. Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: And can I ask an update -- sort of 


the status of where we are with letters and so 


forth on Rocky Flats, official letters to the 


Secretary and --


 DR. ZIEMER: The letters have gone to the 

Secretary. 

 DR. MELIUS: They've gone, okay, so 

(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, they went out 21 days after 


the previous meeting, so whatever that was, but 


I thought I'd distributed those to all the 


Board members. 


 MS. MUNN: You did. We got two together. 


 DR. MELIUS: We saw a draft, we didn't see a 


distribution. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it basically went out the 


next day, I --


 DR. MELIUS: No, I understand. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- got no comments back on 


changing the -- the -- or editorial things, so 

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 DR. MELIUS: Oh, okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- yeah, that's... 


 DR. WADE: Secretary's deadline is August 6th. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. But those letters all went 

out. 

Okay, any other questions for Dr. Neton on this 


report? 


 DR. WADE: I assume the Board would want to 


hear an update on -- when next it meets by 


telephone on September -- 6th, is it? 


 MS. MUNN: 4th. 


 DR. WADE: On Sep-- the early September phone 


call -- excuse me, September 4th, we'll hear an 


update from Jim then. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Jim. 


REVIEWS OF SEC WRITE UPS
 

Our next item is entitled review of SEC 


writeups. That really is the review of our -- 


our motions that were acted on earlier in the 


meeting. So let's go back -- we have -- 


actually we have the -- the Chapman and the 


Bethlehem --


 DR. WADE: Ames, Chapman and the -- 

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 DR. MELIUS: Well --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we have a motion pertaining 


to Bethlehem --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- that we agreed that we would 

get --

 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the final wording on. 


 DR. WADE: We have it, yeah, we --


 DR. MELIUS: I -- I'm -- just let me pass 


around a couple of documents, but let me 


explain. First I have the Ames draft and the 


motion relevant to Bethlehem. They're to--


they're sort of together here. They're 


collated and I'll pass those around. 


And I have a Hanford draft that I will pass 


around to everybody. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, and then -- then we'll have 


a Chapman Valve -- were we able to get that to 


-- to -- we have it on a flash disk. I wonder 


if we could get that -- we'll get that printed 


here in a moment and have final copies ready. 


 DR. MELIUS: I've got copies --


 DR. ZIEMER: Is this -- this first act-- oh, 


okay, this is Ames. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, they're such -- so I was 


keeping (unintelligible) down here so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: The Ames is a two-pager. Right? 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) No, 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. MELIUS: No, the Ames is -- has another one 


with it, which is the Bethlehem motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh --


 DR. MELIUS: There's two pages there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the second page is the 


Bethlehem motion, okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: The second page is the Bethlehem. 


LaShawn sort of collated them together when she 


gave them to me, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now I believe on the -- both the 


Ames draft and the Hanford draft, we actually 


approved those in the -- in the form that 


you've given us here. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and I have two minor change­

- a minor change in each one of those -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- that I'd like to... 


 DR. ZIEMER: So once everybody gets those, 


point those out and we're going to probably 


rule those as being friendly changes not 

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requiring an official vote. 


 DR. MELIUS: They're -- they're friendly 


changes with assistance from NIOSH. These are 


just clarifications that NIOSH staff requested. 


On the Ames draft in the second bullet, towards 


the bottom of the page under "This 


recommendation is based", it says "The NIOSH 


review", it's that bullet. Go to the third 


line down, starts with "necessary to conduct 


accurate", I want to insert the word "internal" 


so it would now read "necessary to conduct 


accurate individual internal dose 


reconstructions for thorium". 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


 DR. MELIUS: That one. And on Hanford, if you 


go to the -- this is a slight change to the 


definition -- the cohort definition. It's 


under -- where -- it's about the middle of that 


second paragraph under there where it talks 


about the 300 Area fuel fabrication, that line. 


So the line starts "Works in: the 300 Area fuel 


fabrication facilities". I want to change that 


to read "the 300 Area fuel fabrication and 


research facilities from October 1st", et 


cetera. I think NIOSH just felt that that -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Is more inclusive. Right? 


 DR. MELIUS: More inclusive, just to clarify 


that they weren't limiting to just the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- fuel fabrication and -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- the addendum or supplement to 

the report that -- the evaluation report that 


they are producing will include the same 


clarification in it, so... 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So with those changes, and since 


we have already voted on this in the form that 


it's given here, I don't think it's necessary 


to -- to vote. You have this for your record. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Are there copies available for the 


public if they --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I think --


 DR. ZIEMER: They are on the table and -- 


 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) in the back, 


yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- members of the public, if you 

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do pick those up, I'll ask you to do two 


things. One is to put a date on the top and 


the other is to make those two minor changes in 


the wording that Dr. Melius has suggested. 


Okay, let's go to the Bethlehem document, and 


this one will require a vote since we did not 


vote on it. 


 DR. WADE: Just finishing on Ames and Hanford, 


on Ames Paul and I will seek the Clawson vote; 


on Hanford we'll seek the Lockey and Clawson 


votes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Thank you. Okay, Jim, why 


don't you read this for the record -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the Bethlehem vote -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- or Bethlehem motion. 

 DR. MELIUS: Motion. I move the action -- that 

action on the Bethlehem Steel SEC evaluation 


report be postponed and the Board establish a 


working group on the use of surrogate data, 


parentheses, data from other facilities, in 


dose reconstructions. The workgroup should 


examine NIOSH procedures, TIBs and site 


profiles to catalog the nature of the use of 

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surrogate data in the dose reconstruction 


process, evaluate this use, and make a report 


to the Board that would include a framework for 


the appropriate use of surrogate data and 


recommendations for possible changes to current 


NIOSH procedures. Once the workgroup has 


reported back to the full Board on this issue, 


the Board will reconsider the Bethlehem SEC 


evaluation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So that is the -- the motion. I 


do want to ask for a clarification on the last 


sentence 'cause one might interpret that as 


being occurring at the very tail end of a 


working group that could go on for an extended 


period of time. So can we clarify that last 


sentence? 


 DR. MELIUS: It is meant specifically to say 


once it is reported back, and I would think 


that it would report back multiple times, and 


so at any time that we thought it was 


appropriate to --


 DR. ZIEMER: So once a report has occurred, 

that's a --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- a potential trigger point. 
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 DR. MELIUS: -- I don't want to, you know, 


limit it or -- it's -- it's open, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I -- so within the context 


and -- and -- the motion itself has a context, 


so if that question arises, that will show up 


in the minutes that this is -- this is not a 


stipulation that -- that the Board cannot act 


until this workgroup has fully completed all of 


its work --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- which could go on for a while. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I mean I actually think the 

Board could really act at any point in time -- 


yeah, yeah, it's -- we're just taking -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I understand. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- making an action at this time 


and -- but... 


 DR. ZIEMER: So let's reopen this one now. We 


-- we did not vote on it so it's still open for 


discussion. Is there any -- are there 


questions or comments or discussions? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Was there a second? 


 DR. ZIEMER: There was a second already on 


this, I think. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Oh, was there? 

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 DR. ZIEMER: I don't recall. 

 MR. GIBSON: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You did second? If -- if it was 

not already seconded, Mike Gibson has re-


seconded it. So anyone wish to ask a question, 


make a comment, or speak for or against the 


motion? John. 


 DR. POSTON: I just want to reiterate what I 


already said yesterday. Each one of these SECs 


is site-specific. The use of surrogate data is 


site-specific. And unless this charge is to 


the workgroup to examine all the sites, it 


seems to me that it's just delaying the effort. 


We've had testimony from Congressmen, Senators, 


staffers, petitioners urging us to get on with 


it -- with making these decisions, you know, 


either compensating the people or making the 


decision they're not compensable. To me, this 


is just an attempt to delay what NIOSH is doing 


quite well. We do evaluate the use of 


surrogate data, SEC does, the workgroups do 


when they look at the -- into SECs. I don't --


don't see any need for this -- this delaying 


tactic. This thing could take forever and I'm 


very much opposed to it. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. So you're 


speaking against the motion and -- okay, and 


Dr. Melius --


 DR. MELIUS: And I would -- well, disagree with 


the characterization. This is not a delay 


tactic. I -- I would just say that yeah, I 


would agree that the application and the use of 


surrogate data is made on an individual site 


basis, but I think there are some principles 


that can be derived that would help to guide 


our use and make our -- our use more consistent 


from site to site, and I think that's what 


we're -- we would be aiming for. And I think 


we've done that in other -- other instances 


within this program. We realize that it's 


individual dose reconstruction, but it's guided 


by certain procedures and so forth and we try 


to maintain consistency. 


We also developed a procedure -- guidelines for 


the evaluation -- overall evaluation of SEC 


evaluations, and that was also something 


recognizing that those -- our review would be 


individual, but would provide sort of an -- an 


overview of what steps would be taken and 


guidance on that that would be applied in 

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individual cases. And I think it's been -- I 


hope -- believe it's been found to be helpful 


and that's what we would be looking for with 


this -- this effort, also. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Other comments, 

pro or con? John, another comment? 

 DR. POSTON: Well, sin-- since, as I said, the 

sites are different, then the establishment of 


consistency is going to be small. There's 


going to be very little consistency among the 


sites. Certainly sites that handled uranium 


are going to be different than sites that 


handled plutonium, et cetera. But no, to me, 


we already have a situation in place where SC&A 


looks at it, we -- working group look at it. 


As I said yesterday, my working group certainly 


with Chapman Valve went down that road because 


at the time we didn't have any data. We fir--


we worked together with NIOSH and SCA and the 


working group --


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 DR. POSTON: -- and then when we did find the 


information, we put that aside. But had we not 


been able to find that information, we would 


have used surrogate data. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 DR. POSTON: And every site is different, and 


so the consistency of the procedure is going to 


be very lacking, in my opinion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: Another repetition of -- of my 


concerns from yesterday. I just think these 


two issues should be separated. I am very 


hesitant to tie a working group who's looking 


at surrogate data specifically to any one site, 


and especially to the Bethlehem site. So I 


have no objection to having a workgroup pursue 


the concept of surrogate data. We've discussed 


that. But I really hesitate, personally, to 


tie it to Bethlehem. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments, pro or con? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. WADE: My procedural sense is no, in that 


this would not constitute a recommendation to 


the Secretary, but I stand guided by the Board. 


I think several members have left their vote -- 


intention of their vote with Board members, but 


if a Board member does -- has not signaled 


their vote, I'm not sure I would pursue it, but 

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you tell me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Both Mark and -- and Jim Lockey 


have left with me that information. Both of 


them indicated that they will -- that they are 


in support of this particular motion. This --


this is a kind of a borderline one. It doesn't 


directly involve a recommendation to the 


Secretary, but in -- in a sense it involves 


delaying a recommendation to the Secretary so 


there's a level of importance that one might 


argue --


 DR. WADE: That's right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- for obtaining those votes -- 


and Brad's as well, as far as that -- 


 DR. WADE: If it's the sense of the Board, I'll 


go after Brad's vote as well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's sort of my interpretation 


at the moment. It's the second part that sort 


of impacts on what we do with respect to the 


Secretary, so -- other comments? 


 (No responses) 


And as -- I certainly would be guided by the 


Board on that, as well, as to whether those not 


present be allowed to vote. But it seems to me 


this is a -- not a trivial issue. 

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197

 DR. MELIUS: By -- by the way, Mark is on his 


way back. His flight got canceled and he's -- 


he'll be returning to the hotel for -- for the 


evening so maybe he can speak for himself -- 


 DR. WADE: And here he is now. That'd be 


funny. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You should have said Mark has come 


back to vote on this particular... Yeah, 


Robert. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I voice -- voice my opinion as I 


did yesterday. I, too, do not believe that 


this should be tied to a single point. I 


believe we have a site profile or an SEC -- 


site profile, and then we do have a -- a -- a 


new working group started. I have no problem 


with the new working group. I think that needs 


to be done. I just don't want to tie that to 


an end result for an SEC. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me -- let me ask the group 


this, because -- and this is within Robert's 


Rules. There is a provision on -- on motions 


which have a level of complexity that the 


motion be divided. It actually takes a motion 


to do that, but a motion to divide would be one 


that would separate these two issues. A motion 

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to divide supersedes the motion that's on the 


floor, just like a -- an amendment. And so the 


Chair, recognizing that there's some difference 


in opinion, the way we resolve that is to 


suggest, if -- if the members so wish, to -- to 


have a motion to divide the issues, and then 


that is voted up or down. That's one way to 


approach it. You may not wish to do that, but 


that's a possibility. 


Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: I'm certainly willing to make such a 


motion, if it's not going to stall things for 


the rest of the Board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not urging that be done, I'm ­

- I'm --


 MS. MUNN: No, I'm --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- trying to find a path forward 


in --


 MS. MUNN: That would be --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- terms of this issue. 


 MS. MUNN: -- my preference, personally. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's -- are you making such a 


motion or --


 MS. MUNN: I will be glad to do that. I make a 


motion that we separate the tabling of the 

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Bethlehem SEC evaluation from the establishment 


of a workgroup to study surrogate data. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I'll second the motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And that's seconded, so now the 


discussion is on separating these two issues 


and voting them separately. Discussion? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yes, I -- I just think that's 


going to complicate things. I mean I think we 


can predict what will happen. We're not going 


to be able to reach an agreement on Bethlehem 


with a -- with a vote and -- at this meeting 


and I think -- by putting them together, I 


think -- at least I can speak for myself 


personally that -- that, you know, based on, 


you know, some development of guidance within 


this workgroup and significant progress, I 


think we would be able to reach a better 


agreement and understanding on going forward 


and be able to -- hopefully to resolve the 


Bethlehem issue. And you know, if we're going 


to get tied up in -- I mean it's going to be 


the same outcome. I don't -- I don't think it 


makes all that much difference, but we're going 


to be tied up here doing a whole series of 


motions and I think this was offered as the 

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most straightforward way of trying to resolve 


this issue. And I don't think, in terms of 


timing or anything, it -- it, you know, frankly 


makes any -- any difference in terms of when we 


would be able to reconsider Bethlehem. I 


believe that this workgroup could make 


significant progress by the October meeting and 


we'd see where we stand there and if we're 


ready, then we can go ahead and -- and deal 


with Bethlehem. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Robert, do you have another 


comment or --


 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: Jim, did I understand you to say 


that you didn't think we could reach consensus 


on tabling the Bethlehem SEC? 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I -- I -- on a -- on a 


recommendation to the Secretary on the 


Bethlehem. 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, well, I'm not suggesting that we 


address anything to the Secretary at this 


meeting. I'm suggesting that we table the 


Bethlehem SEC. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I --

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201

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- I guess what you're 


suggesting is if the motion is divided, we 


would act separately and you would offer a 


motion separately to table the Bethlehem SEC -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but not to tie it to this --


 MS. MUNN: No --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- workgroup action. 


 MS. MUNN: -- not to tie it to the workgroup. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So the outcome is somewhat the 


same, but it separates the issues. And some 


may feel more comfortable on how they vote with 


that -- in that regard. 


Anything else? The motion before us is the 


motion to separate. Pro or con, any other 


comments? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, then we will call for a vote on 


separating the motion into two parts. 


All who favor separating the motion, raise your 


right hand. One, two, three -- Gen Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Aye, separating the motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What did she say? 


 DR. WADE: She votes to separate -- is that 


right, you vote to separate? 

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202 

DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Four, the Chair -- unfortunately, 


we have two -- well, we can't -- 


 DR. WADE: Let's just finish the vote and see 


where it is. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'll vote to separate, five. 


Those who don't favor it -- one, two, three, 


four. 


Okay, then the ayes have it. We will now move 


on establishing the workgroup that's been 


suggested. That would be the motion before us 


now, so it's basically everything up to the 


last sentence. 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, are you ready to vote on 


that or is there further discussion? 


 (No responses) 


 All who favor establishing the workgroup as 


described, say aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 All opposed? 


 (No responses) 


 Gen Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Aye. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, that is approved. Now the 

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other motion -- right now the other motion 


would be once the workgroup has reported back 


to the full Board on the issue, the Board will 


reconsider the Bethlehem SEC evaluation. That 


motion would be put aside if there were a 


motion to table the Bethlehem SEC. I simply 


give you that by way of information. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I'll make that motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Your motion -- your motion is to 


table action on the Bethlehem Steel SEC. 


 MR. PRESLEY: That's correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is there a second? 


 MS. MUNN: Second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And seconded. This motion is not 


subject to discussion. We will vote 


immediately. All in favor, say aye. 


 (Affirmative responses) 


Opposed? 


 (No responses) 


 And Gen Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Aye. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Aye. The motion carries. So 


overall, the result is the same, but we have 


separated the two issues. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Bethlehem Steel could come back 

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(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it probably could anyway, 


but at least --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- it's separated. Thank you very 


much. 


 DR. WADE: Well, now procedurally, do you want 


me to seek additional votes on the vote to 


separate? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to -- I'm going to make 


a ruling on that. The Chair's ruling can be 


challenged by the assembly, but my ruling is 


that that doesn't rise to the level that 


requires it. And as a practical matter, we 


can't function on this with -- without those 


others being here, so I'm going to rule that 


it's not required for either of these. 


 DR. WADE: For either of all three of the votes 


you've just taken. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That is on -- on -- on this. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Josie? 


MS. BEACH: Is it possible to go ahead and 

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establish the workgroup at this time? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we'll finish up the -- 


MS. BEACH: The rest of --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the motions and we'll do the 


workgroup in -- shortly, yeah. Thank you. 


Then we have the Chapman Valve draft that's 


been distributed. John, since we did not have 


the wording on this previously, we had -- we 


had the general vote but we did not have the 


detailed wording, could you go ahead and read 


it into the record? 


 DR. POSTON: Recognize that this is the first 


time I've done one of these so there might be 


lots of changes necessary. 


 The Board recommends that the following letter 


be transmitted to the Secretary of DHHS within 


21 days. Should the Chair become aware of any 


issue that, in his judgment, would preclude the 


transmittal of this letter within that time 


period, the Board requests that he promptly 


informs the Board of the delay and the reasons 


for this delay, and that he immediately works 


with NIOSH to schedule an emergency meeting of 


the Board to discuss this issue. 


The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

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206 

Health, the Board, has evaluated SEC Petition 


00043 concerning workers at the Chapman Valve 


Manufacturing Company under the statutory 


requirements established by EEOICPA and is 


incorporated -- and incorporated into 42 CFR 


Section 83.13. The Board respectfully 


recommends Special Exposure Cohort status be 


denied to all individuals in this petitioner 


class who worked at Chapman Valve Manufacturing 


Company in Indian Orchard, Massachusetts from 


January 1st, 1948 through December 31st, 1949 


and from January 1st, 1991 through December 


31st, 1993. The Board agrees that NIOSH has 


sufficient information regarding these 


activities to provide bounding doses for this 


class of workers. NIOSH believes that they are 


able to reconstruct components of the internal 


dose and all external doses; the Board agrees 


with this conclusion. 


This recommendation is based on the following 


factors: The activities and the potential 


exposures at the Chapman Valve were carefully 


documented in the detailed report prepared by 


the H. D. Ferguson Company. The NIOSH review 


of the available monitoring data, as well as 

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the available source term and other 


information, found that they possessed adequate 


information necessary to -- I'm sorry, there's 


a misspelling there -- to bound -- oh, to pro-- 


should say information necessary to provide 


bounding and claimant-favorable estimates of 


the doses during the time period in question. 


The Board agrees with this conclusion. 


Enclosed is supporting documentation from the 


recent Advisory Board meeting held in Richland, 


Washington where the special cohort was 


discussed. If any of these items are 


unavailable at this time, they will follow 


shortly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so the --

 DR. POSTON: Oh, there's a --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- editorial is to add the word 

"provide" --

 DR. POSTON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- in -- in the third line of the 

second bullet. 


Now let me again remind the Board that this -- 


this motion would only go forward if the 


Clawson vote were yes. Otherwise, this is a 


moot point. There would be no majority, either 

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way. If Clawson votes no on this motion, it is 


a six-six and we have no action, would be my 


understanding. 


 Now comment? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah -- no, I want to offer a 


friendly amendment to an unfriendly motion -- 


I'm against the motion -- but I think on behalf 


of NIOSH, they asked one clarification. I 


think they're so used to me doing the letters, 


they --


 DR. POSTON: That they gave it to you. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- assumed -- but if you go into 


the second paragraph, the second to last line 


where it says "reconstruct components of the 


internal dose", they want to change that to 


"reconstruct all components of the internal 


dose". 


 DR. POSTON: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: And then all external doses. I 


think that --


 DR. POSTON: Okay, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thanks. 


 DR. POSTON: Or we could strike the second 

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"all". 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. POSTON: Either way. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now we have already voted on this 

motion so this is just for editorial purposes 


so you have it. Again I instruct you that the 


-- the instruction to the Chair will have no 


force if Clawson votes no, so we all understand 


that. 


 DR. POSTON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And if -- if that is the case, 


this -- the outcome will be reported back at 


our next meeting, which would be the phone 


meeting, and then we can decide where to go 


from there. 


 Larry, comment? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I just want to ask a question for 


completeness and clarity of the record. It 


seems to me there might be one other option. 


don't know that it would play out this way, but 


what -- what -- in case he abstains, what 


happens in -- you know, he could abstain, I 


guess, and then the motion would still carry 


forward. 


 DR. ZIEMER: In the case of an abstention, then 


I 
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it would go forward. 


 DR. WADE: Larry was just making sure that all 


possibilities were enumerated. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I will double-check that with 


-- with Robert's Rules because one might argue 


that -- that the vote is six out of 12. See 


what I'm saying? But normally the view is that 


in -- in -- in effect, an abstention goes with 


the majority, or has that effect, and I will 


double-check that in case that occurred. I --


I think from -- actually Lew and I have had a 


preliminary discussion with Brad to let him 


know that we will be seeking his vote and we 


will provide the exact wording of the motion 


for him so that he has that before him when he 


gives his vote. But my understanding is that 


Brad intends to vote, and so we'll -- I don't 


expect there to be that abstention, but -- 


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


Board's rules. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) speak to recusal. 


 DR. WADE: Counsel tells me -- I -- I do recall 


from Dr. Melius's reading this morning that -- 


that the Board rules do speak to recusal. 

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Shall I read it all or -- let me go back to it 


then. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, sorry. Why don't you just 


give us the sense of it rather than me reading 


it? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) Okay. You 


want me to go to the microphone? 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, please. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: The Board's procedure, as 


Dr. Melius indicated this morning, speaks to 


what an eligible member is, and it says 


eligible members are defined as those whom (a) 


have not been required to recuse themselves 


from participating in the discussions regarding 


issues at hand; those who have not been -- have 


not abstained from a specific vote; or those 


who may not be available to participate in a 


given vote. So an abstention would not count. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So if they abstain, it removes 


them from the count, yeah. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right. 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think that completes our review 

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of the SEC writeups. 


 DR. WADE: And a fine review it was. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It's 2:30. 


 DR. WADE: We're a little ahead of schedule. 


BOARD WORKING TIME


 Board working time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we have several items to 


come before us on the Board working time, the 


first of which is the appointment of a working 


group for this task that we just defined. 


Typically we like to have four members on the 


working group. The Chair does the appointing. 


I would like to -- I always like to get 


volunteers on these and then try to make sure 


that we get some balance of various backgrounds 


in the workgroups. So Josie, you're 


interested. Wanda is interested. 


 MS. MUNN: I guess primarily because I'm 


already working with other procedures and it 


seems to mesh --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: -- in some way. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So we've got those two. Phil is 


interested, okay. Anyone else interested? 


We'll have to hear from -- 

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 DR. WADE: Dr. Lockey. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You -- you have those three names 


and we'll -- I'll -- I'll seek a fourth if it's 


not volunteered. We don't have to actually 


make the appointment here today fully. The 


Chair can make the appointment, so I'll check 


with others, see if there's anyone else 


interested. If not, I'll twist some arms and 


we'll -- we'll come up with a fourth person. 


 DR. WADE: And at the same time you'll 


designate a chair? 


 DR. ZIEMER: And designate a chair. Okay? And 


as soon as that's done, that workgroup can 


proceed and -- and set up a work time for their 


first meeting. 


Next item, I have distributed team assignments 


for set eight of the dose reconstructions. 


I've given a copy to SC&A. I will also e-mail 


a copy to Kathy so she has that in electronic 


form. Let's see, Stu, we -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: You got one? 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- give you a copy here so NIOSH 


has it. There are 30 cases here. I'm --


rather than spend any time here today, I'm 


going to ask you -- and I'll ask Lew to help on 

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this -- go back -- I think I've covered all of 


the --


 DR. WADE: Conflict --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- conflict of interest. That's 


why you see -- for example, these go down in 


order, ones, twos, threes and fours, but 


sometimes you see the order flipped on the team 


numbers and that's because of conflict of 


interest. Each team has five cases. If you 


find that you -- that I missed a conflict of 


interest -- yeah, we'll give one to counsel, as 


well -- let me know; we'll switch them around. 


Again, I've just taken these -- these are in 


the order that they were on the -- the work 


sheet, which looks kind of random in terms of 


the case numbers. And I've abbreviated some 


things. The list of organs, they're somewhat 


abbreviated for convenience of the table. And 

also the POCs are abbreviated. I haven't 

carried them out to seven decimal places. I'm 

-- I'm only joking, but on many of these charts 


there are three decimal places and we know that 


the -- even one is a stretch, but anyway, there 


you have it. Any questions on the teams? 


 (No responses) 

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 DR. WADE: Have a letter from Senator Obama. 


Jason's --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, this -- this letter I think 


deals with -- is it Granite City, General Steel 


Industries, or... 


 MR. BROEHM: Yes, this one does, and I have a 


separate letter to read I guess during your 


talk about future meeting dates -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. BROEHM: -- 'cause there's an issue there, 

as well. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Proceed. 

 MR. BROEHM: So this is from Senator Barack 

Obama from Illinois. (Reading) Dear Dr. 


Ziemer, as you are most likely aware, NIOSH 


recently completed its TBD-6000 appendix for 


General Steel Industries, GSI, one of several 


former nuclear weapons facilities in Illinois 


covered by the Energy Employees Occupational 


Illness Compensation Program Act. 


I understand the Advisory Board on Radiation 


and Worker Health is meeting this week, and one 


of the items you will discuss is GSI. I would 


like to formally request the Advisory Board 


task your auditor, Sanford Cohen & Associates, 

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with performing a full evaluation of TBD-6000. 


I'm sure you will agree that we owe it to the 


workers and their survivors to make sure every 


available tool has been utilized to ensure the 


process by which their claims are being 


adjudicated is credible and fair. Sincerely, 


Barack Obama, United States Senator. 


 DR. WADE: And with knowledge of that coming, I 


had asked John Mauro to familiarize himself 


with that TBD and any others that might be 


relevant within the same context, so John is 


prepared to speak to this, as the Board might 


wish. 


 DR. ZIEMER: John? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I read TBD-6000 and 6001. 


Bottom line, they are a compendium of 


information dealing with uranium, the -- 6001 


deals with the front end of the process where 


you're talking ore and you're processing it. 


The back end of the -- of the process, I -- is 


where you have the actual ingot and you're 


using it and you're working the metal, similar 


to the types of things that were done at 


Simonds Saw and other of these metal processing 


facilities. 

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And yes, we are -- we've seen a lot of the 


material before. It's a compendium of material 


that we have reviewed in various capacities and 


-- but there is also quite a bit of new 


material which has been integrated, and we are 


prepared to perform a review of both of those 


TBDs and we do have adequate budget within Task 


III to perform them this fiscal year within 


this fiscal year's budget. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Board members, 


what is your feeling in terms of establishing a 


workgroup? Any objections to that? 


 DR. WADE: You have a procedures workgroup. 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) Uh-huh 


(unintelligible) procedures workgroup. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This -- this is the -- 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh, this is the --


 DR. ZIEMER: This is a GSI --


 MS. MUNN: -- the GS--


 DR. ZIEMER: -- 6000 workgroup or something 


then, is --


 MS. MUNN: It's a TBD, not a TIB. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, okay, I --


 MS. MUNN: I think. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- it's not clear to me. What 

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it's calling for is a workgroup on GSI, I 


think, but maybe that -- the focus is on a 


procedure, so maybe that gets covered. 


 DR. WADE: Well, let's talk about this subject. 


My interpretation -- well, Stu, don't let me 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I just wanted to offer, for 


everybody's -- make sure everybody's clear on 


this, there's an appendix to 6000 that is 


specific to General Steel, and I bel-- I think 


it's brand new. I don't know if it's even on 


the web site yet. But --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and that's what he -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, so it's on the web -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that's what he's referring to 


is this appendix. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: That's what Senator Obama is 


referring to and so --


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that appendix. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- that's the additional part 


that I think he's specifically asking about. 


 DR. WADE: Has SC&A reviewed TBD-6000? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, they -- he's looked at 


6000, but he's not looked at the General Steel 


appendix --

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 DR. WADE: Oh, okay --


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- for 6000. 


 DR. WADE: -- we'll let him speak. 


DR. MAURO: To help out a little in 


anticipation of this question, I've read both 


documents. However, I did not have access to 


the full suite of appendices so I haven't read 


the appendices, so I know in general what the 


two documents contain, but I have not 


critically reviewed them, nor have I looked at 


at all any of the appendices. 


 DR. WADE: Right, so SC&A has not been tasked 


with reviewing TBD-6000 or 6001. 


DR. MAURO: No, we have not. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 


DR. NETON: Maybe just to reiterate a little 


bit of what Stu said and clarify, the GSI 


appendix is a stand-alone document that deals 


primarily with the -- the Betatron sources and 


the other X-ray sources at GSI, which I believe 


is what the -- Senator Obama's letter is 


addressing. It's -- the -- the generic 6000 


and 6001 TBDs are -- are complex-wide documents 


that address over 100 -- or attempt to address 

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over 100 AWEs, so that one might be more 


applicable to review in this other subcommittee 


than --


 DR. ZIEMER: In the subcommittee, yeah -- 


DR. NETON: Right, 'cause that -- that's a 


generic TBD to address generic issues regarding 


uranium processing when -- when you don't have 


monitoring data. The GSI appendix is a standalone document that -- that addresses the 


issues that are unique to -- to GSI. 


 DR. WADE: Could there be a meaningful review 


of the appendix without the review of the 


document 6000? 


DR. NETON: Absolutely. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Also you -- go ahead, Larry, you 


can approach the mike. I was just going to 


point out that the document you received from 


John Ramsport (sic) and the one from Dr. McKeel 


last night, both are their critiques of that 


document. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, they're critiques of -- I'm 


sorry, Dan is not here right now -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Of that -- of that appendix. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- of that appendix, yes. They ­
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- in their critiques they have not taken, I 


don't believe, any comment on 6000 itself. 


DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That goes to how we reconstruct 


the uranium dose at GSI. As Jim says, this 


appendices deals with how we reconstruct the 


Betatron dose, and that's where their concerns 


lie. So that's what I was going to say. 


I'd also offer that there -- as I showed in -- 


what day was it now -- Tuesday's program 


update, there are eight appendices completed 


and another eight that are in review right now 


and will be shortly concluded. And you know, I 


don't know how you want to deal with those, but 


if you're looking at one -- these are very 


concise, small-page documents so I think -- I 


think there's only 12 pages of this GSI 


appendices and the others are very similar in 


their extent and content, and we would welcome 


whatever review you might feel necessary for 


those other seven -- or 15 -- that are coming 


out shortly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, there's a couple of ways to 


go about this. One would be to do it under a 


procedures review. The other would be to have 

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a workgroup that's focused on GSI that would 


pick up part of that as part of their charge. 


Now where do we stand on GSI petition? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) There is no 


petition. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is there --


 MR. ELLIOTT: There is no -- there is --


 DR. ZIEMER: No petition at the moment. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Right, there is no GSI petition. 


We have consistently commented to both Dr. 


McKeel and Robert Stephan that -- and -- and 


John Ramspott -- at any point in time they can 


submit an 83.13, and they have chosen to 


proceed as they have, so... 


 DR. WADE: And just to clarify, Jason, the 


Senator's request is -- again, could you read 


it? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I -- yeah, I -- I got the 


impression from earlier letters from McKeel 


that -- which paralleled what Obama's staff was 


saying, that they were calling for a GSI 


workgroup. And if there's no petition, that 


becomes a little awkward, perhaps. 


 MR. BROEHM: I'm just trying to find the 


message so I can read you the exact words. 

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 (Pause) 


It says (reading) I would -- I would like to 


formally request the Advisory Board to task 


your auditor, Sanford Cohen & Associates, with 


performing a full evaluation of TBD-6000. 


 DR. ZIEMER: There's something about a 


workgroup --


 DR. WADE: Not in his --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, not in Obama's -- 


 MR. BROEHM: I don't think there was anything 


in here about a workgroup -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay, so it was only in the 


Ramspott or the McKeel letter -- 


 DR. WADE: He's asking for TBD-6000, and you 


would assume and its appendices, particularly 


the one that deals with GSI. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's what he's actually 


referring to. 


 DR. WADE: Right, so I just (unintelligible) 


what he's asking for, we can do what we want. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Larry? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I only offer up that these other 


appendices are either there or forthcoming, and 


-- and in my thinking, you know, it -- it goes 


to procedures and how we do this dose 

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reconstruction work, and so -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- you know, why not -- I guess 


I'm saying why not put them all under -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- the procedures workgroup and 


have them all examined, starting with GSI. 


 DR. ZIEMER: In the absence of a petition at 


this point, that makes sense. Comment, Jim? 


 DR. MELIUS: No, I -- I would agree with -- I 


think what you're saying, which is Wanda's 


group should -- procedures group should -- 


should get this one -- yeah, pile it on. 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. MELIUS: But what I was --

 DR. ZIEMER: She may need an extra member of 

her group. 

 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) Yeah, we've had 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, Paul just volunt... Can I 


volunteer the Cha-- no, that's probably -- 


yeah, dangerous, right. 


In response to sort of Larry's comment and so 


forth, I would just urge that -- especially 


since I think I know what the next letter is 

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that he's going to read is suggesting that we 


meet the next time in Illinois. And to the 


extent that's possible, it would be nice to 


have the -- this review done or well underway 


by that -- that time, so I would just think -- 


or at least prioritize -- we're going to look 


at all the appendices, at least prioritize so 


that we do the relevant one first. I don't 


think -- and I think -- I don't think Larry 


would disagree. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, no, no, I'm up for something 


else here. I mean same topic, but I would like 


the Board and SC&A to know that we are planning 


a worker outreach at GSI to explain to them how 


we deliver -- or how we're doing dose 


reconstruction under this and see, you know, 


how they -- what their reaction is to our 


approach and whether we need to change it 


because we didn't get it right. So we'll 


certainly notify the Board and -- and your 


members and SC&A when we finalize the -- the 


time frame for that -- that visit down there to 


GSI. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it seems clear that 


certainly the review, from the Board's point of 

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view, can be carried out by -- by our 


procedures review committee. The -- the issue 


of SC&A, I don't know if we -- they can 


certainly do that task under -- 


 DR. WADE: But I would ask SC&A to -- to begin 


immediately the review of TBD-6000 and TBD-6001 


under Task III. That would include a review of 


the appendices, and we would ask you to begin 


with General Steel Industries. 


DR. MAURO: It wasn't until now that I realized 


that there are a large number of appendices 


dealing with different sites. Okay? Certainly 


we can do 6000 and 6001 and the GSI appendix 


within the budget -- 'cause I looked at the 


scope of work and I looked at the budget we 


have left, and we do have resources to do that. 


I'm a little uncomfortable saying that we could 


review 15 or more --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the others --


DR. MAURO: -- of these (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- are coming down the line. I 


guess they're --


DR. MAURO: And we'll deal with those next 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: And we'll deal with them next 

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year. I think --


DR. MAURO: As long as that's appreciated -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we can limit to -- to this one 


DR. MAURO: I understand. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- this time. Okay. 


 DR. WADE: We weren't going to take that small 


offer you made and drive a truck through it. 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) He said eight, 


John, eight (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, does that complete that 


item? 


 DR. WADE: I believe so, but I think it's im-- 


and that's something you can begin immediately, 


John, and the contracting officer will -- will 


so notify you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to back up a moment to 


the Bethlehem Steel multiple motions. I want 


to clarify one thing. In -- in separating the 


motion into two, I failed to point out -- 


because I failed to notice it -- that the very 


first sentence of the first motion says I move 


that action on Bethlehem Steel be postponed -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and that we set up the 

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workgroup. But the dividing of the -- of the 


motion technically should move that wording 


into the last part -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I think -- I just want to 


make it -- make sure -- the effect is -- is no 


different, but the -- the first motion would 


say I move that the Board establish a working 


group --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- et cetera. 


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I just want to make sure that -- 


that that's clear. Okay. 


(Pause) 


FUTURE SCHEDULES


 We're actually -- we're up to future schedules 


or we can take a break. I -- you want to --


future schedules won't take that long, will it? 


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) No, 


(unintelligible) discuss locations. 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) Oh, I don't know, 


if you (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it may. 


 DR. WADE: Well, we could -- well, we can do 

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anything for a long time. Do you want to take 


a break or not? 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Not unless --


 MS. MUNN: No? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I -- let's -- let's proceed. 


 MR. BROEHM: Okay. I think this is the last 


Obama letter for this meeting. Dear Dr. Ziemer 


-- or actually I should clarify, it's not just 


from Senator Obama. It's also from 


Representatives Judy Biggert and Jerry Weller 


from Illinois, as well. 


(Reading) Dear Dr. Ziemer, it is our 


understanding that the National Institute for 


Occupational Safety and Health has recently 


completed its revised Blockson Special Exposure 


Cohort evaluation report and that this 


evaluation and the Blockson SEC petition in 


general will be discussed when the Advisory 


Board on Radiation and Worker Health convenes 


this week in Richland, Washington. 


Although it will be discussed, it is also our 


understanding that the Blockson SEC will not be 


voted upon at this time. We appreciate the 


fact that the Advisory Board hosted its 

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November 2006 meeting in the Chicago area so 


that the Blockson workers and their families 


could attend and have their voices heard 


regarding their ongoing pursuit for 


compensation. If at all possible, we 


respectfully request that the Advisory Board 


consider holding the meeting at which the 


Blockson SEC petition will be voted upon as 


close to Chicago as possible so that the 


Blockson workers and their families may attend 


in person. 


 Additionally, at its November 2006 meetings the 


Advisory Board agreed to Senator Obama's 


request that Sanford Cohen & Associates 


complete a review of the revised Blockson 


evaluation report. We respectfully request 


your assistance in obtaining a copy of this 


report as soon as it is made available to the 


Advisory Board. Sincerely, Barack Obama, 


United States Senator; Congresswoman Judy 


Biggert; and Congressman Jerry Weller. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. The 


locations that we had on our list as 


possibilities included the Chicago area, Las 


Vegas near the Test Site, Pittsburgh near the 

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NUMEC site -- was there one other one? We 


periodically talk about Pantex, but that's not 


on our screen very much at the moment, so -- 


any preferences, Board members, to give Lew 


guidance on this as -- we don't always know 


availability of hotels and so on at a given 


time. 


 MR. PRESLEY: If we're going to Chicago let's 


go now rather than the middle of winter like we 


did when it was --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, October in Chicago's not a 


bad time. Actually it's quite pleasant there. 


 DR. WADE: Just so you know, our next meeting 


is October 3, 4, 5. The next meeting after 


that is January 8, 9 and 10. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's when you want to go to 


Chicago. 


 DR. WADE: A mite chilly. 


 MR. PRESLEY: It was -- it was five degrees 


above zero when we were there the last time. 


 DR. WADE: We could go Chicago in October and 


Nevada Test Site in January. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Let's go to Dallas in January. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any suggestions or objections -- 

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Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I would certainly be -- I do 


think that it makes sense to -- I would put 


Illinois at the top of the list, Chicago area, 


simply 'cause I -- I do -- I do think we may be 


able to resolve Blockson or be close enough 


where a meeting would be -- be in order there. 


I think that -- I just would ask that we keep 


Nevada on the list as a possible sites 'cause 


we do have that evaluation report coming out 


and I think -- I think it's useful to get a 


meeting at -- it's a large site and fair amount 


of interest in this program (unintelligible) 


out there. 


I would also ask that we do continue to try to 


move along on the 250-day issue, though, also 


and try to get that done by the -- the October 


meeting if we can, at least -- least for some 


Board discussion at -- at that meeting. I -- I 


neglected to bring it up, but when we were 


talking about Ames we do have a -- as part of 


that, we are looking at the Ames Laboratory and 


we actually have a report from SC&A re-- 


regarding that's relevant to the -- specific to 


the 250-day issue, so I think we -- we should 

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be ready on that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: John? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I -- in light of this 


discussion I'd just like to point out that we 


did deliver recently our Blockson report. It ­

- however, I believe it has not yet been PA 


reviewed. I think there's a footnote on the 


bottom that says it has not, so just to alert 


you so that it doesn't -- so that it can be 


made avail-- right now it cannot be made 


available for widespread distribution, so it 


sounds like that should be something that we 


could move through so that the delegation could 


have access to that report also. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That -- is that currently under 


review, do we know, by --


DR. MAURO: It was delivered --


 DR. ZIEMER: It was delivered and is under -- 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, but it hasn't --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: It is under review. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other Board members 


want to weigh in on --


 MR. PRESLEY: Lew? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, you're -- you're sort of -- 

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you're --

 DR. MELIUS: No, I have a separate comment but 

the --

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, catch the --

 MR. PRESLEY: You want to stay in Chicago or 

outside? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Western suburbs is probably 

preferable for both the workers and for access 


to O'Hare. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Naperville where we stayed before 


was -- you know, the accommodations -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we were -- we --


 MR. PRESLEY: -- were mighty good there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We were in Naperville before. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MR. PRESLEY: And it's easy to get to. 


 DR. WADE: I will --


 MR. PRESLEY: It's not that far. 


 DR. WADE: -- aim for Naperville. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The -- the site itself is in 


Joliet? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Joliet, which is not that far 


from Naperville. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that's fairly close, 

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actually. Any other -- any objections to the 


Chicago area, or preferences for others? 


 (No responses) 


 Apparently not. Thank you. Gen Roessler, 


we're not coming to Lake Wobegon. 


DR. ROESSLER: That's okay, it's colder here 


than Chicago. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Separate comment? 


 DR. MELIUS: Separate comment for -- John 


brought up the issue of Privacy Act reviews. 


would once again request that we get some 


procedure in place to assure that's occurring 


in a timely fashion. I noticed as we were 


discussing Hanford and I was going through some 


of the issues related to the worker outreach 


meetings, there was a worker outreach meeting 


in March for which there's still -- the notes 


from that meeting, I'm not quite sure they're 


minutes or how to describe them, are still 


under Privacy Act review. Now they may have 


only been given to the attorneys a week ago, I 


don't know, so I'm not -- 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) don't review (unintelligible) 


I 
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 DR. MELIUS: Well, whoever --


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- SC&A (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- (unintelligible). 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Well, whoever's -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: It -- it --


 DR. WADE: There is a procedure in place and we 


should (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Yeah, remember, there's a 


-- some time lag before -- I mean give -- Ray's 


doing a lot of minutes for -- or not minutes, 


but transcripts, and so not all of this is in 


Privacy review. Ray has to get the transcripts 


out. I don't know how long a review takes. Of 


course it depends on the length of what they're 


reviewing, but --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, it's not my place to talk 


about all of the procedures, but I do want to 


speak about those aspects of the process that 


I'm responsible for. Any document that is 


generated by NIOSH staff or its contractors 


that will come into your deliberations, we have 


-- and that includes whatever documentation we 


provide in support of one of our evaluation 

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reports or Technical Basis Document, Technical 


Information Bulletin, that has to be reviewed 


by the Privacy Act office. We assist them in 


that process as best we can. 


If it's a worker outreach meeting that we 


sponsor -- and I'm sorry Dr. McKeel's not here 


again because I'd like for him to hear me state 


this to -- on the record, I've said it to him 


before, but if it's a worker outreach meeting 


that we sponsor at NIOSH, then we assemble 


minutes from that, notes from that -- that 


worker outreach meeting. We -- we are not 


allowed to put individual identifiers or names 


in those minutes. We collect a signup sheet 


and we note who was at the -- at the meeting. 


But once those minutes are posted on our web 


site, they are redacted so that no individuals' 


names appear and -- and so, again, that's 


Privacy Act office doing that. 


 What's outside of my area of responsibility is 


-- as Liz has indicated off record here, or off 


mike -- is that anything that is generated by ­

- oh, here she is so I'll let her talk about 


it. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I will go on the record for 

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everyone's information. The Office of General 


Counsel, at the request of the Designated 


Federal Official, only does Privacy Act review 


for the SC&A documents. We do have a procedure 


where our legal technician works with their 


document control officer to provide all of 


those documents to us. Dr. Wade and the 


contracting officer are aware of when we 


receive those documents and if a deadline has 


been provided to us, we do try very hard to 


meet the deadlines. Although I do have to say 


that the only document we have for review right 


now we were not provided a deadline. If there 


is one, then obviously we can speed up that 


review, but we are only responsible for SC&A 


documents. Everything else goes either to OCAS 


or to the Privacy Act office. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Liz. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: And just to complete this little 


segment for you, I feel that it's important for 


everyone to know that the Privacy Act office 


gets everything. They get whatever Liz's 


office also looks at. They get whatever my 


office looks at. And they're the final 


determination point and so they're very busy. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: So there's another level after 


this, of review? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, our -- I have -- I have two 


staff members in my shop that provide a -- a 


review and identify things for the Privacy Act 


officer. The same goes on, I believe, with -- 


with Liz, or they work in concert with the 


Privacy Act office doing the same kind of a 


thing. We work together -- Liz, Emily and Dr. 


Wade and I -- trying to prioritize these 


reviews for the Privacy Act office, based upon 


the needs of the Board. And then we also work 


together to try to prioritize our -- our 


excellent transcriptionist's efforts on what 


needs to come out of his office first, or 


second, third and fourth, so -- and -- and I 


would just like to be on the record saying I 


think Ray Green does a great job and it's not 


because of him that some of these documents are 


not out in the public, you know, as -- as 


quickly as everybody would like them to be. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think the Board will all 


second that we applaud the work of our court -- 


 DR. WADE: Let's not have any of that. I mean 

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- Ray --


 DR. WADE: We do have procedures in place, they 


are written procedures. We'll bring them and 


present them on the call in September so that 


the Board can be aware of them and, again, we 


could talk about them now. There are three 


types of documents. There -- it gets very 


complex as to whether SC&A generates them, 


NIOSH generates them or somebody else generates 


them. And you know, we've been working very 


hard at clearing them through, and I think 


we've been doing better at it, but we'll tell 


the Board in detail. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I think the one thing I forgot to 


mention when I was talking before Liz got 


behind me here was what I -- what I've talked 


to Dr. McKeel about is another source of 


information that comes to us, and that is 


generated by -- by a petitioner or an advocate 


that thinks it's important and needs to get 


into the public venue. And our web site -- we 


have to be careful with what goes on the web 


site. We can't just be placing information on 


the web site that -- that another person views 


as relevant and important. We have to look at 

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that and determine if it's relevant. So it is 


in our judgment what goes on the web site. The 


testimonies that Dr. McKeel and John Ramspott 


have provided us from worker outreach efforts 


that they sponsored -- not that we've sponsored 


but they sponsored -- that's -- that's very 


much center at -- at -- at center on what his 


concerns are about these things getting up on 


the web site. It took us a while to get those 


through our Privacy Act office and get them so 


that -- in a shape that -- and get agreement 


that these are the kind of things that go on 


our web site, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thanks. Do we have another 


comment from --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah -- yeah, I just -- additional 


comment and hopefully this'll be on the agenda 


for the next meeting. I passed on an e-mail to 


Larry, Lew and to Paul with some concerns about 


the web site and about the need to make sure 


that we -- we provide a little bit better 


service to the petitioners and other people 


interests in terms of how -- what documents are 


on the web site and how they are organized and 


-- and -- and indexed, so to speak. And 

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particularly many of the SC&A documents are not 


making it to the web site and assuming not in a 


consistent fashion and I think that it's very 


confusing and frankly very unfair to people on 


the outside who are trying to deal with some of 


these issues and had some suggestions -- I know 


Larry's reviewing those now and Lew and 


hopefully will take them up at the next one, 


but -- but I really think we need to address 


that. And the Privacy Act thing becomes part 


of it only in that -- that not only currently 


do documents, you know, spend a certain amount 


of time in -- in Privacy Act review, but the 


way we handle things now, people are often 


unaware that they are in Privacy Act review so 


that some on the outside may not know what 


we're even reviewing, let alone the -- the 


content of those and I think that is -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- problematic, so I would hope by 


the next meeting that we can at least have a 


procedure in place to try to better address 


that -- those issues. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It might be possible to think 


about having -- if a document in that category 

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has arrived in the sense that it could be 


identified on the web site as under review, 


that will --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, which was -- which was -- 


yeah, which I suggested that we just say it's 


Privacy Act, it's expected to take four weeks 


or whatever. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but -- but it does exist and 


it --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- will show up at some point. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: John, a comment? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I'd like to just ask some 


guidance from the Board regarding our Dow 


report. We -- quite some time ago, I believe 


at the Mason meeting, we were asked to review 


the -- the Dow SEC petition, which we did. 


Then on the May 2nd meeting I believe there was 


also an evaluation report and -- that was in 


place, which we did review, and at the same 


time we were asked to review an additional 700 


pages of new material that was placed on the 


system and we were also asked to parti-- to 


participate in a -- an outreach program with 

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Dr. McKeel, which we did. So at that time we 


were asked by the Board to perform those 


functions and, to the extent possible, to 


explore some of the technical issues related to 


dose reconstruction for thorium post-1960. Now 


we --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and actually in our -- we -- 


we got off on the DOL and DOE stuff, and SE-- 


SC&A was supposed to be part of that and the 


Chair forgot about that. I'll attribute that 


to old age and that's my position. But anyway, 


we were to, at this meeting, hear a report from 


SC&A on that --


DR. MAURO: Yes, that's why --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and so --


DR. MAURO: Well, yes --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- having overlooked you, John, I 


now recognize you for that report. 


DR. MAURO: We've completed as mu-- let me 


describe it this way. When we reviewed the 700 


pages of additional material, and when we 


participated in the meeting with Dr. McKeel, 


one of our mandates was to try to obtain 


information regarding thorium practices. We 


were able to get minimal information because we 

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only really were able to information that 


covered from '57 to '60. I -- I -- I was 


listening in to the conversations regarding 


post-1960. I understand there's still some 


legal issues that are being explored there. So 


what I could say right now is that the work 


that we've completed to date addresses 


primarily the same subjects and we have the 


same findings as we did at -- when I reported 


on May 2nd. We don't have anything of 


substance to add regarding the ability to -- or 


the performance of dose reconstructions for 


thorium in the post-1960 time period. We -- we 


were -- if in fact we're given direction to try 


to obtain some records, it's my understanding 


we would work with NIOSH to seek additional 


records that would cover the post-1960 time 


period from Dow and -- Spectrulite I believe is 


the other company. We -- we have not done 


that. So where we are right now is we do have 


a report. The report can be delivered to you 


shortly. The only thing we're still doing is 


we recently received the transcript -- turns 


out Dr. McKeel and the law firm that -- I guess 


where -- where the meeting was held, tr-- did a 

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transcript, and we have that transcript now. 


We're reviewing it and we're a week away, two 


weeks away from having what I would call a 


final report of those activities. But as I 


said, it is constrained in that it really 


doesn't go well into the post-1960 time period. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. But it is a report on 


what we tasked you to do, and -- and is a 


deliverable, I would -- I guess. 


DR. MAURO: And -- and it is, and we're 


prepared to deliver it shortly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Thank you very much for 


reminding me that we had that update. 


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: We -- we think we're through the 


agenda. Let me ask if there are any other 


items to come before us that any of you know 


of. 


 (No responses) 


Mark is back. Mark, while you were away we 


made the following appointments for you. 


 No, I -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. WADE: We have. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: I think we have completed all of 


our business. Thank you all for good, hard 


work over the last three days. We stand 


adjourned. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting was concluded at 3:10 


p.m.) 

______________________________ 

248 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of July 19, 


2007; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


20th day of Sept., 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102 


2 

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